Seeking Alistair
by PheonRen
Summary: F!Amell named Sheri goes searching for Alistair after she spares Loghain at the Landsmeet. To her it seems as if finding griffons would be easier than getting Alistair to forgive her. Angst, sexual content, violence. Rated MA for a reason, folks. m/f
1. 1 through 5

_This is a requested story. The formatting is strange because the original place of posting only allows 4400 words per post. I am stringing multiple posts together here because I've had complaints in the past that chapters are too short._

_Here's the original request:_

* * *

_So an M!Warden has the option of chasing after Morrigan when the Blight is over...why doesn't an F!Warden have the option to chase after Alistair?_

_Prompt: Any F!Warden (admit a preference for Amell) in love with Alistair chooses to spare Loghain at the Landsmeet due to practicality - more Wardens, better chance of success, right? She's totally broken up over it when Alistair flips his shit and leaves, and the minute the Archdemon is slain she starts searching for him to make things right._

_Looking for heavy angst (especially F!Warden doubting if she did the right thing by sparing Loghain), and leave it up to anon if there's a happy ending or not. (Though everyone loves a happy ending! XD) Sexytimes wherever you see fit to put them, in any context. I feel like this would be a fairly long piece by its very nature, so I'm going to cross my fingers that there's an awesome anon out there who picks this up!_

* * *

**Part 1: Seeking Alistair**

Sheri swept down the hallway, the skirts of her robe whispering Alistair's name with every step. It seemed she heard or thought of Alistair with every move she made. She heard his name in the dripping of water, she heard his voice in crowds. She saw his face in dreams.

He was everywhere, which was simply unfair, because he was nowhere to be found.

"No, Ser," the man walking beside her and barely keeping up was saying. "We haven't been able to find a man answering to his description. But—can you please slow down?—there have been reports of a man by his name in—"

She stopped abruptly and turned to face him. "Where?" she demanded shortly, forgoing courtesy for expediency. Then she sighed. Wasn't that what got her into this mess to begin with? Indeed it was.

"In Orzammar, Ser. But getting more out of the dwarves is…" he shrugged and she chuckled.

"That's got to be him. They're unwaveringly loyal to him, they wouldn't talk about him if he asked for them to hold their peace."

"Indeed," the mercenary replied. "You may wish to know that the dwarf who said that a man named Alistair might be staying at the inn there, only said so after we told him it was you who was looking."

"Red hair? Beard flask, multiple braids?"

"Why, yes, how'd you—"

"Oghren! Maker bless you, you little bastard." She breathed. She had an ally—odd as that fact might be. Oghren had actually taken off with Alistair, bellowing at Shari the whole way.

"Ser?" the mercenary was looking at her oddly.

"Thank you, you're dismissed," she told him. Then she went in search of Brinn. She would leave him in charge while she went in search of the love of her life.

"Brinn, this is not open to debate. You are completely trained and capable, that's why you were sent here. I'm going to find him. I don't answer to the Queen, and I don't answer to you."

"You are being very irresponsible," Brinn argued, his arms crossed over his chest and his chin sticking out. "You don't even know if this man wants to see you again. He left for a reason, you should honor that. We need you here."

"I'm going. If you had family you'd lost, wouldn't you go search for them?"

Brinn scowled openly at her. "He's not your family."

"Not yet," Shari told him. "But if I have anything to say about it, he will be." She walked out on him and shut the door. She understood his viewpoint, but she wouldn't hide in Amaranthine a day longer while Alistair believed she had betrayed him without care.

Now that she knew where he was, and since Brinn was fully trained, there was nothing holding her back anymore.

"Alistair," she said out loud into the corridor. "You can run, but you can't hide." She hefted the last pack onto her back and left the Arling behind, going out the front doors like a woman set loose.

She harbored hope deep in her heart, but she knew that Alistair had justification for his anger. And she didn't know how to convince him she loved him, because in her heart, she agreed with him.

Loghain had set himself up as King, betrayed everything good and decent in Ferelden. And she had let him live. She knew she couldn't convince Alistair that she'd done the right thing. She could barely remember now why she'd done it at all—despite the way it had turned out—but she could tell Alistair that she had made reparation for what she'd done.

Maybe… maybe it would be enough.

* * *

**Part 2: Seeking Alistair**

Sheri traveled to Orzammar without incident. It was rather surprising, given that there were still roving bands of Darkspawn, some wolves, various bandit bands, and other issues to deal with. But she met nothing that she couldn't handle, and the journey was swift.

When she got there, it took only a short time to find Oghren. He was fully drunk and just as fully crotchety.

"He don't want ta see ya," he grunted at her. "He figgered out ya was coming, an' he left."

She crossed her arms, put one leg up on the chair beside him and leaned forward to stare directly into his face. "And how, pray tell, did he know I was coming, Oghren?"

"Someone mighta let it slip that you was lookin' for him," Oghren said, then belched.

She didn't let that deter her. "Someone, Oghren, or you?"

"Can't blame me! I didn't make ya save Loghain!"

She sat heavily across from him. "Oghren, I had little choice. Only the Wardens can kill the Archdemon. There were three of us. Three, Oghren. Think about that for a minute. Three people against countless Darkspawn and a tainted, twisted high dragon."

"We was with ya, it wasn't just three people." Oghren took a swig of ale and shouted for a new flagon.

"Yes. But how hard is it for three people to be wiped out in that kind of fighting, those kinds of odds? It isn't that I thought the army would lose, Oghren, it's that all of us stood the chance of dying—all three of us. The odds of us all dying were higher than the odds of us all living."

"Who ya tryin' to convince, Sheri? Ya make it sound so practical… but ya didn't fuss about it before then. The pair of yous coulda died anytime." Oghren took a deep drink and stared at her out of bleary, red-rimmed eyes.

She looked away. She suddenly didn't want to discuss all of this. Oghren was wrong, she had tried several times to convince Alistair they needed to rebuild before facing the Archdemon.

It didn't really matter though. She still felt guilt about it. She truly hoped that Alistair would forgive her, but she often thought she would live the rest of her life—a fortunately short one—with the guilt.

"Where'd he go, Oghren?"

"Bloody bronto behind, how the Fade should I know?" Oghren snapped at her. "Ye think he's gonna tell me? I already telled on him once."

She leaned across the table. "I don't think he'd tell you. But I still think you know. You're drinking like a sieve with an extra hole—a big one."

"'E went into the Underground." Oghren belched a rolling cloud of stench. "I ain't sure if he's runnin' from you, or tryin' to kill hisself. Either way, 'e went in there alone and nigh on to kilt me when he caught me followin'."

She stood up and turned to leave.

"Ye ain't goin' in there, is ya?"

"Yes, Oghren. If Alistair went, I go, too. I'll honor what he wants, but not until I've said my piece and told him one more time that I…"

"Well then I'll be goin' with ya. And Leliana's gonna wanna go, too."

She crossed her arms and stared at the dwarf. "Anyone else?" she asked wryly.

"Ah… Shale might be still lurkin' around the entrance to the Mines," he said, as if trying to get out of saying it.

She sighed. "Very well."

They left the tavern, Oghren somehow managing to walk straight more often than he swerved.

* * *

**Part 3: Seeking Alistair**

Sheri greeted Shale simply, "Let's go, if you're coming."

Shale fell in beside her. "Is It going after Alistair, then?"

"Yes."

"One wonders why It waited so long."

Sheri shot her a disgusted look, but didn't respond. What could she say? She could try to defend herself, but none of her arguments had convinced her, why should she expect them to convince anyone else.

"Well, one can hope that later really is better than never." Shale stumped along beside her, leaving the stone ringing behind them.

Sheri ignored the arguing, disguised as friendly banter, as they walked along. The others chatted easily, killed freely, and seemed fully at peace. But her own thoughts continually crept back to the question of why Alistair was there, and how she could help him understand the need for what she'd done.

So she took a deep breath and plunged into the Deep Trenches after the only man she'd ever loved besides the father and the brother she could barely remember anymore. Despite having killed the Darkspawn and the spiders all the way there, the whole of the Deep Roads had been filled with them all over again.

Yet they'd seen constant proof that Alistair had come that way. Even Ruck had admitted to having seen him.

Thus, when they arrived at the Deep Trenches and found only dwarves fighting the Darkspawn coming across the bridge, Sheri felt a moment of shocked fear.

"I came looking for Alistair," she told one of the dwarves as she helped push back an especially large clump of Darkspawn, washing the man over with a Heal just before she spoke.

They fought furiously for a few moments, and then the dwarf turned to her. "Red haired human fellow?" he asked gruffly.

"Yes, that would be Alistair," she told him.

"'E was here. He knew you'd be 'ere soon. He decided he wasn't ready for this, after all. He doesn't want to die, he said, but he can't deal with seeing ye, neither. So 'e's off to Antiva." The dwarf turned away to fight more Darkspawn.

They helped for several hours, Sheri pondering the discussion. The up side of the whole thing was that Alistair wasn't ready to die. But he couldn't handle seeing her. Did that mean he didn't want to? Or that he was afraid if he saw her, he might forgive her?

She decided that she would find out for sure. She would go to Antiva. She knew which way he would go. He would take a ship, because he would believe she'd never take one to follow him. He knew her complete terror of water, and he would take advantage of it.

That fact alone nearly undid her. If he did take a ship, he probably really didn't want her to follow him.

Then, Leliana pointed something out to her. Maybe he'd take a ship just to see exactly how sorry she truly was.

It was surprising, because at first they'd argued that he wouldn't go, that he was trying to mislead her. But she'd pointed out that he didn't lie. If he'd said he was going to Antiva, he was going. He'd hide the truth, that much was true. But he didn't actually lie.

The return trip through the Deep Roads was much faster. Because he'd taken a route intended to avoid them, it was likely that he'd been delayed some. So they were still only a few days behind him… still long enough that she feared they might not catch up.

So they moved quickly out of the Deep Roads. In Orzammar, it almost seemed as if he'd gone out of his way to make sure he'd be seen, and they'd know he'd left already. It was almost like a game—but one that Sheri had to admit she didn't like at all.

* * *

**Part 4: Seeking Alistair**

They emerged from Orzammar, and instead of heading towards Antiva, they actually headed the other way. It wasn't long before her decision was confirmed. Their first Alistair sighting was at the Lake Calenhad docks at the Spoiled Princess. He'd passed through three days ago, but stayed the night.

Sheri didn't. She pushed onwards into the darkness. The others grumbled, but kept up. They met only one group of bandits over the next two days as they traveled. With great speed, they dispatched them.

"It's uncanny the way they do that," Leliana said to Shale one evening.

"What is it talking about?" Shale asked in her resonant, warm voice.

"The birds. Do they always follow you like that?"

"Yes. One would think they expect it to shit birdseed, the way they follow. It's why One spends its time in Orzammar."

Sheri sighed. This was the sort of inane conversation she could expect all the way to Antiva. She wondered how she was going to manage to talk with Alistair when they were constantly blathering on about completely inconsequential and trivial subjects.

She had to convince him that she regretted what she'd done, while still letting him know that she hadn't intended to betray him. She felt strange because it seemed as if the two ideas were mutually exclusive. She wanted on the one hand to be able to say, "You know, I'm sorry I did it, but it was the right thing to do, and it turned out more right than you can ever imagine," without making it sound like the action wasn't worth the outcome.

The closer they got to the docks, the more indications came that they were catching up. By the sixth day, Sheri realized that he would probably be at the tavern in the next town. She wouldn't have to get on the ship. She could avoid the water and the sailing entirely.

"Maybe he needs to know he's worth facing your worst fear for" rang in her mind. Leliana had a point. Even if Alistair didn't hope for that… Sheri would still give that to him.

So she skipped the tavern and traveled into the night. When they got to the docks, they soon learned that he hadn't arrived yet.

But there were two ships setting sail within the week. One in two days, and the other in three days. The one in three days claimed it was better to avoid the end of the Monsoon season, but the other brushed the danger off.

Sheri, being a nervous sort, payed off the first ship to not take Alistair. She explained that it was a romantic thing, and would he please refuse Alistair so that she could be on the same ship as he and surprise him. The Captain, a short, round man who claimed he had "a woman in every port," agreed because "love is such a beautiful thing."

Then, with some degree of regret, Sheri sent the others on their way. Each one of them, before they left, gave her something to give to Alistair. Oghren gave her a new, waterproof pack. As a joke, it was filled with corncobs. "That way, 'e can throw it in after ye if he throws ye overboard in anger," Oghren laughed.

It was a good joke, but also an excellent backpack.

Leliana gave her a camp cookware kit. Alistair had been staying at inns, and even when they'd been traveling with him, he hadn't been any good at cooking.

Shale's gift was several lengths of rope. She simply said that it was a joke, and he would probably understand it. If he didn't, though, she guessed he could probably use rope anyway.

Sheri suspected Shale hoped he would hang her with it. Really, though, Shale had heard that rock climbing was a sport in Antiva, and Alistair had once jokingly said he'd go there and take it up before he died.

They all left, and the day came to board the ship. Her heart in her throat, Sheri climbed on and crept down to the cabin she'd been assigned. She had watched from across the street, and Alistair had tried to book passage on the other ship and been turned away.

Thus it was no surprise when she saw him coming onto the ship, packs in hand. She would have bailed if they'd prepared to set off and he'd not come, but there he was. Now she had no choice. Her course was set.

She scampered to her cabin and heard Alistair's voice as he passed and was shown into the cabin beside hers. Her heart thundered in her chest and her breath stopped for several moments.

* * *

**Part 5: Seeking Alistair**

She paced restlessly, touching the wall between their cabins now and then as she heard him moving about next door. She wouldn't ruin it by running over and groveling at his feet—no matter how much she wanted to.

And she really, really wanted to. She wanted to more than she'd wanted anything in her life, because they were sitting at dock and her stomach was tied up in knots so badly she could barely think. Let it never be said that he wasn't more important than anything else in her life…

It seemed like eternity before the ship finally lurched away from the dock. She heard Alistair in his room, he was singing something he surely had learned at some bar since the whole 'Loghain incident.' It was loud, bawdy, and to put it conservatively and kindly, very off-key.

To her, it was the most beautiful music she'd ever heard. Which was good thing, because she could only cling desperately to her cot as the ship sloshed and bucked on its way out of the port.

What in Thedas was she doing on a ship? Panic tore through her and for a moment she forgot everything, including Alistair, and she climbed under the cot and began to wail.

It started out quietly, but as the rocking of the ship increased and it bounced away from land, she felt the terror rising. With it, her voice began to rise.

She dimly heard herself, and grabbed her staff. Unashamed, she bit down on it, trying desperately to stem the keening wail of fear that rolled out of her as violently as the deck below her.

Little did she realize that these were perfectly calm seas, and what was to come would make this seem as smooth as the straightest of walls to her.

A knock at the door startled a yelp out of her.

"Are you okay?"

She panicked. It was Alistair! Leave it to him to be the one to hear her—being in the cabin next door notwithstanding.

"Yes," she croaked out.

"Seasick already, huh?"

"Yes." Wow, she was a master communicator.

"Well, I'm right next door, let me know if there's anything I can get for you."

He waited and she tried to come up with something to say. "Thanks!" she finally managed.

He clumped away, and she wondered idly before the next wave of terror hit her, why he wasn't wearing his armor. But she supposed that being covered in metal was probably a good way to be an anchor, rather than a floater.

Which got her to thinking about what might happen if he was swept overboard—or worse, what if she was? He could swim a bit, he'd once told her. She was a mage, she'd lived on the edge of the Lake and never once been in it, much less learned to swim.

She heard him next door, and this time his singing wasn't quite so bawdy. She smiled in her misery. Leave it to Alistair to treat a woman he couldn't even see like a lady.


	2. 6 through 9

**Part 6: Seeking Alistair**

She managed to stagger out to the rail several hours later, a basin full of seasickness clutched in both hands. She managed to make it all the way over there by watching her feet. When she looked at the water, she tried to add to the basin, her stomach clenching and heaving.

At last, she arrived, and she poured it over the side, grateful to be there and glad to be rid of it. She was pondering how to get the remainder out and wondering if there was some sort of spigot or even sponge she could use in some way, when she was startled out of her wits.

"Eww, I think you got some on the boat," Alistair said from behind her.

She started so badly that she jumped and let go of the metal basin. It flew outwards somewhat, flung by the force of her reflexive reaction. Seeing it hit the water and sink below the waves caused her to once more dry heave.

She leaned over the railing, terrified. She didn't want to be there, but she wasn't ready to see him.

"Whoa," he said. "You're not doing very well, are you?" She felt his hand on her arm and he pulled her back from the railing. "Sheri?"

On the up side, he didn't sound outraged. But he sounded shocked, which she thought he shouldn't, since he had pretty much led her here.

"What are you doing? Are you crazy?"

She answered him in the simplest way. She leaned over the railing and dry heaved again.

"I really hope that's sea sickness, not morning sickness."

"What? What the hell kind of thing is that to say? Don't you think if I was pregnant, I'd be past due?"

"Only if it was mine."

"That is a really hateful thing to say."

"What do you want from me? Why are you here?"

"I came to…" she groaned and clutched her stomach again. "I came to see you, what do you think?"

"Come on," he told her, grasping her by the upper arm. "You need to go back to your cabin."

"I can't," she said. Misery curled through her. "I just threw my basin overboard."

"You can have mine," he said, short and curt.

Even more miserable than before, she allowed him to help her back to her cabin. He growled when she realized she was next to him, but went and got the promised basin.

"Next time, let me help so this one doesn't meet with a mishap."

* * *

**Part 7: Seeking Alistair**

She dropped onto the floor, she'd fallen out of the bunk too many times by that point to sleep in it anymore.

"Are you really sleeping on the floor?" Alistair asked.

"I fall out." She didn't bother to explain further.

"There's a trick to it. They showed me the first night." He helped her into it, and then showed her how to affix the netting to it. She might roll into the netting, but it would just bounce her harmlessly back into the little cot built into the wall.

He sat the basin beside her, helped her latch the netting, and walked out without another word.

Sheri rolled onto her back and fought both tears, and her rebellious stomach. Sorrow pulled at her. He was so cold. So distant. She had come to know him so well, and she knew the full depth of his passion, the fullness of his loving and tender nature.

But she was reduced to a virtual stranger to him. A stranger he didn't like. The tears spilled over and trickled down into her hair.

"Oh, Alistair," she whispered. "I'm so sorry. I don't know what I'm doing anymore. You're right," she continued in a whisper, knowing he couldn't hear her, "why am I even here? I should have listened to Oghren."

She let the tears flow then, curling up on her side and letting the tears run without interference.

She had saved Ferelden, she couldn't argue with that. She had done the right thing, it had turned out. But did the outcome justify the decision she had made?

She gave up thinking in favor of struggling to get her face over the basin—just in case. Eventually, sleep claimed her, and she left thoughts of Loghain and Alistair behind… The only time she could do it since the Landsmeet, was she was sleeping.

She woke again, surprised to find Alistair sitting in the nailed-down chair beside the bunk. "Alistair?" she asked. Why was he here?

"Sheri. Hi. How're you feeling?"

"A little foggy," she told him. Her mind felt muddy and distant. She thought something might be amiss, but couldn't place what.

"The Captain thinks you aren't seasick after all—"

She chuckled. "So are you telling me that wasn't a dream last week when you ravished me in Orzammar?"

He stared at her for a moment, a look of confusion on his face. Then he blushed and his eyebrow rose. "You dream about me that way sometimes?"

Before she thought about it, she blurted, "Do I dream of anything else?" Then, "Oh Maker, I said that out loud, didn't I?" She buried her face in her pillow.

Alistair laughed. "I'm afraid so."

* * *

**Part 8: Seeking Alistair**

"Anyway," he told her, "there seems to be a fever onboard. The Captain said they probably picked it up in the last port before the one we just left. He also said a storm is coming in, and it may be a long day. Is there something I can get for you?"

She tried to focus, but she was strangely lethargic. She realized she hadn't given him his gifts, and she pointed at the backpack.

"This?" he asked her.

She gestured affirmatively, and he pushed it in through the net. She started to tell him that it was for him. She thought she even said so. But his face seemed to disappear down a long, dark corridor, and she was sleeping again.

Alistair looked down at her, sprawled on the cot in the bunk, clutching the backpack. She muttered something slurred and completely unintelligible. He shook his head sadly and reached in to put the backpack back. She clung to it, though, and rather than fight for it, he sighed and left it. It shouldn't harm her, whatever the very hard object in it was, was on the side away from her.

He walked to the doorway and looked back. Her bright red-brown hair fanned across the pillow and reminded him of brighter days, better days, sweeter times. His heart ached, and he turned away. He wanted to just forget it all and grab her up and keep her safe.

But he couldn't. He couldn't get past what had happened, and he couldn't give up his heart again. So he walked back to his own cabin with his thumbs hooked over the belt of his breeches.

He climbed into his bunk and hooked the netting, then laid back with his hands behind his head and stared at the bulkhead above him. He grinned in spite of himself. So she had racy dreams about him… He closed his eyes and let himself remember. Just for now. He wouldn't think about it again. But for now, maybe it wasn't so bad.

Sheri slept well for a few hours, but found herself waking as night fell. The ship was climbing high in the water, and then barreling at great speed down the other side of the waves. They had hit the bad weather, and it was howling and screaming, battering viciously at the miniscule ship that dared venture into it.

She wretched again as the ship swooped down another wave and into the trench, where it wallowed for a moment, before lumbering up, up, up… only to plunge again with a dizzying speed that left her stomach at the top of the wave and her body in the trench with the boat.

Shouts from the crew were dim against the enraged howling of a wind that battered at the ship, snarling and growling and sniffing for a way in like a wolf at a nug's burrow. The timbers of the ship groaned and squealed, crying out in pain as the wind and the waves battered relentlessly at it.

She clung desperately to her basin for a moment, but gave up as she was slammed hard against the back wall for the thousandth time—and counting. She counted herself fortunate that her stomach had been empty and thus so had the basin as the ship careened again, this time sliding down sidewise instead of forward.

The crew's voices changed from tense shouting to worried yelling. Sheri found herself lying on the wall as the ship went nearly vertical. Then it righted with a sickening lurch that made her heave again. It rose again, still sideways, and the alarm in the ship's crew became unquestionable.

Sheri clung to the backpack like an anchor in the storm as this time she was thrown against the netting and it bulged outwards. The wind buffeted them harder now that it had the full side of the ship to assault, and Sheri groaned in her terror. Her worst nightmare was coming true.

* * *

**Part 9: Seeking Alistair**

The ship wasn't made for such treatment. It was little more than a shore trawler. It was intended to follow relatively close to the shore from Ferelden around to Antiva. It was laden with merchant wares, so it was sitting low in the water, as it nearly always did.

Unfortunately, the captain, although wise to the ways of the sea and of the weather, couldn't have predicted this late, unseasonable, violent storm. The ship that had left before him had hit the worst of it and succumbed within hours.

That the captain had kept this ship afloat as long as he had was a sad testament to his prowess as a sailor. His formidable knowledge and skill, however, could not save the wallowing trawler.

It was as inevitable as the coming of the night that the trawler would be overcome. When it finally turned sideways in the waves, the captain knew it was over. He pushed men into lifeboats, knowing that it was unlikely they would survive, either.

In his haste to save his crew, he realized belatedly that he had forgotten the passengers. He had loaded up the last of the crew and prepared to step into the lifeboat. He realized that he just couldn't leave them to their fate, and told the crew to wait.

But as he turned back to go into the cabins, he was swept from his feet and overboard. The crew unlashed the lifeboat and went after him.

Beneath the churning deck, Alistair had freed himself from his bunk, despite having become tangled in the netting that dangled him above the far wall. He dropped down and climbed through the now horizontal door and into the hallway.

Staggering and slipping, he climbed into Sheri's room and found her unconscious, a red welt on her forehead where she had hit the wall. He disentangled her, but found the backpack wrapped around her.

Dragging her and the bulky, unwieldy backpack, he got them both out of the hallway. But even as he opened the hatch to the deck and looked out, he realized they were in deep trouble. It was nearly vertical now, and the water level was rising. He tried again to get her out of the backpack, but the water caught them, and he felt a dawning terror that the pack would drag her under.

At last, he got it free. It fell into the water with a splash and he pulled Sheri out and followed it. He fought as her robe tangled around him, desperation pulling at him just as strongly.

The ship continued to slide downwards into the water, but it was shifting as the murky depths dragged at it. The tail of the ship began to rise out of the water, and Alistair felt horror growing in him as it loomed over him.

As if things weren't bad enough, lightning struck the tail of the ship unexpectedly, causing a reverberating 'boom' that Alistair thought might finally have done him in. He fought the instinct to grab his head in pain as sparks showered down around him.

He wasn't a strong swimmer, either, and Sheri dragged at him like a lead weight. He instinctively began to drag her away from the ship, but the going was painfully slow and frightening.

He looked around him, hoping to see a crate or a container or even a piece of the ship to grab onto. All he saw was wind-tossed water and a massive wave coming straight at them.


	3. 10 through 12

**Part 10: Seeking Alistair**

The wave struck him hard, tumbling him into the water and making him swim hard for the surface. He coughed and spluttered at the surface, barely managing to get his breath back.

It was only moments before the chill of the water, the dragging current, the vicious wind, and the tossing waters took their toll on him. Alistair began to realize that this could be it. For him and Sheri, there wouldn't be the long walk to the Deep Trenches. No glorious final battle. No one would remember his name, most likely.

He pulled Sheri closer, feeling how frail, and yet hot-very hot!- she felt against him. Her fever was obviously raging despite the cool waters, and he wondered if perhaps she was being spared something worse.

Something bumped into the back of his head then, nearly knocking him under the water. He pushed it away and tried to find a way to more easily hold Sheri. It bumped him again, and he turned impatiently to shove it away.

He gasped with realization. It was the backpack! Bobbing high in the water, it floated towards him again. This time, he didn't push it away, but pushed Sheri up onto it so she was half lying on the huge, awkward, military-style pack. Then he wrapped one of his arms through the shoulder strap. Like that, if he laid on his back, he could wrap that arm around it and hold Sheri on with the other hand and it would keep his head above the water.

The wind and the rain continued to buffet them, though. At best, the pack had delayed their eventual demise. But it was better than dying right that moment, Alistair felt, so he clung to the backpack and Sheri with all his remaining strength.

As the night passed, though, despite the misery and cold, the weather began to clear. But every time that Alistair began to doze off, he would begin to sink below the waves and jerk away gasping and struggling.

When the sun rose, Sheri woke up, but it didn't take long to realize that she was delirious. He touched her and found her skin burning with heat, despite lying half in the water. She looked at him and talked to him, a half conversation as if he were talking back but he was someone else.

* * *

**Part 11: Seeking Alistair**

"I have to go, Brinn. He can send me away. I won't blame him. But he has to know why I did it." She listened to a voice in her head then said, "You're right, I don't. But I'll make sure he does. He deserves to know how it turned out."

She mumbled for a while then. He could make out words here and there, but nothing he could understand well. Suddenly she burst out, "That's all that matters. There was me and Alistair and now there's only me. If we don't rebuild by the next Blight, what will become of us all?"

There was no accusation in her voice, but Alistair felt the tug of guilt and pain. He hadn't left her alone at the time, but that had been the outcome anyway, it would seem.

"Am I a crazy stalker?"

He thought that one might be to him, so he thought about it for a long moment and said, "No—"

Before he could continue, she interrupted him. "He doesn't want to see me. He's running away. Every time I get close, he runs."

Her eyes were glassy, unfocused. She panicked at one point and slid into the water, screaming. He managed, only with great difficulty, to get them sorted back out. He suddenly felt alone and isolated, bobbing in the water miles from anything with a woman whose life he had extended only to watch her slowly dying in front of him instead of quickly drowning.

He was more deeply fatigued than he'd ever been in his life.

Sheri started retching, and Alistair groaned. He splashed seawater to get rid of the worst of it, cleaning it out of her magnificent hair the same way. He'd dreamed of seeing her again. All the things he'd say when she came groveling for his forgiveness. How awesome it would be to tell her to shove off and take it to the Fade with her.

But this had never, ever, been even the worst of his imaginings.

"I can't take her back to the Circle. She'll be killed." Sheri rambled. "Yes, they do. Apostates aren't welcomed back in, they're executed. It makes a point to all of the rest of us. When Duncan conscripted me, he saved me. Irving would have lost the argument over me…" Her voice trailed off and she snored lightly.

It only lasted a few moments. "Alistair!" she screamed it so suddenly that he jerked in surprise. She looked around in panic until she saw him. "Oh Maker, you're alive. The ship is sinking! We have to get out of here!"

Before he could respond, she was asleep.

She woke frequently, going in and out of sleep and babbling at him about statistics, what was required for the daily running of the Arling, and various other trivialities. Once, she woke up seemingly lucid. "Alistair?"

"What?" He couldn't get past his anger at her, even when she was sick.

"Duncan should have told us. If Riordan hadn't told us, I would have done it myself. I almost did anyway."

"Done what? Told you what?"

"Alistair?"

"What?"

"Where are the Darkspawn? I can feel them all around but I can't see them."

As if too weak to hold it up, her head fell and she went back to sleep.

Alistair drifted in a haze. He was so tired. He would sleep soon, despite the encroaching water. What should Duncan have told them? He wondered and wracked his brain trying to figure it out, until at last, he could withstand it no longer and slipped after her into sleep.

It was the rough stone stabbing him in the ribs that woke him. It had been there for a while and he'd kept trying to shift away from it, but the sand was soft and warm and the sea on the shore was lulling him.

But even exhaustion can only compensate for a sharp stone for so long.

He woke and shifted his aching body until he was on all fours, looking over to find Sheri sprawled on the warm golden sand with her hair fanned out across it in bright reddish-brown and blonde-tinted contrast.

She was clutching the backpack, which was softly bobbing in the rising tide.

* * *

**Part 12: Seeking Alistair**

"Come on," he said to her, let's get you into the shade.

Her face was already turning a slight shade of pink, though he knew that sunburn was the least of their worries at this point. It wasn't a tropical season or place, but heat and dehydration would still take its toll. They needed water, and they needed it now.

She was watching the sky with a strange expression, her skin still hot to the touch. He picked her up and looked at her. She was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever known. He sighed and headed up the beach with her towards the small stand of trees at the base of a tall cliff.

"Look, Alistair, griffons!" she said.

He felt like crying. She was growing less and less lucid as time went by. He feared for her more than he cared to admit.

"They're beautiful," he told her, choking on the words. He wished he could see them, too. Though he could think of nothing as beautiful as her.

"Don't cry, Alistair," she told him, her hand coming to rest against his cheek, burning his heart as much as it burned his skin. "I never meant to leave you alone that long. I'm sorry."

He shook his head. He wanted to say so many things to her, but he knew she wouldn't understand. And when she snored lightly, he smiled bitterly. She wouldn't even hear.

He went back and picked up the backpack, not sure what was in it, but hoping for something worthwhile. He carried it back up, wondering what she was doing with such a massive thing, anyway. It was bigger than his torso, and certainly bigger than hers. Yet she'd held onto it like it was the most precious thing she possessed.

He dropped it and opened it, only to find wood-like pellets falling out of it. "What in the Fade?" he swore. He made to upend it when she spoke again.

"Oghren thought that would be funny. It's corn cob pellets."

"Why would Oghren fill your pack with corn pellets?"

She laughed, a laugh edged with insanity and delirium. "It's your pack. It was supposed to be a gift for you. He thought it was funny."

"Well, it saved our lives, I think. It made the pack float."

"Yes. Good thing there was more of that than there were skillets. We survived the water, but now you're probably going to kill us with your cooking." She laughed again.

Then she went crazy again. "Provided, of course, that the griffons don't eat us."

He was about to ask her how she felt when she rolled away and retched again and again. He pulled her hair away from her face until she calmed. When she looked at him, there was misery in her eyes. "I feel sick," she muttered. She laid back and lay watching him in silence as he looked around and found a fairly protected area between several rocks to dump the corn. It was fuel, and he wasn't going to waste it.

Despite it being Spring, he still knew that the nights could get desperately cold.

To his surprise—and great pleasure—a camp kit tumbled out as he was emptying it. Then, even more surprising, and just as pleasing, a rope tumbled out behind it.

"By the Maker!" Alistair cried. "We may just make it!" He looked over to find her sleeping again, her face pale beneath the sunburn.

He squatted beside her and began to pull her wet clothes off. Maker preserve him, but when he saw her body again, he had to turn away and get himself under control again, lest she wake up and see the power she held over his responses.

He went back down to the beach and washed her robe and smalls before laying them in the sun to dry, draped across some rocks. He weighted them down with other rocks before returning to the camp.

Now, he thought, to find a source of water, and if he could, some food.


	4. 13 through 16

**Part 13: Seeking Alistair**

Sheri woke the next morning to the sound of birds, and something else. A deeper, louder, throatier call. She sat up, surprised and embarrassed to find herself naked. She looked over and realized there was a fire burning merrily. She felt a sudden surge of gratefulness as she saw the cooking kit.

It had included a flint and tinder, as well as a knife and several other cooking tools. But her stomach screamed in protest at just the thought of food, and she realized that, despite the fire, she had nothing of the sort.

Alistair was lying across from her, though he wore his clothes again. Fortunately, so far as she could tell, he was dry and clean. She got up and wandered over to the sea, quickly bathing to the best of her ability before climbing back out of the water.

She saw her clothes nearby, laid out under stones to dry on large rocks. She smiled. Leave it to Alistair. He was a bit of a geek, granted, but he was a practical, intelligent geek.

She got dressed quickly before heading back to camp. She was grateful for all that he'd done or her, and she was sure there was more that he'd done that she couldn't remember.

"Alistair?" she reached out to shake him awake to let him know she was going to look for water.

His skin was hot, very hot. He jumped and looked at her with startled eyes filled with madness. "Sheri?"

Then his face clouded with anger. "You betrayed me." The accusation was flat, yet all the more filled with fury for its lack of inflection.

"I'm sorry, Alistair," she told him. "More sorry than you know."

"That's not good enough. I don't want to see you, ever again." He rolled over and went back to sleep.

Sheri knelt beside him in the shaded sand and cried.

Finally, she went in search of water, knowing that if she never returned, he wouldn't care. But she would, because she had to. Carrying the canteen, she walked along the cliff, uncertain of where to even look for water. She knew they couldn't drink from the sea, but beyond that, she had no idea.

She was a Circle mage, raised in the same single building for her entire life. She'd not been beyond its confines until she was an adult, and then only for limited excursions. Everything she knew, she knew from books or lessons… so she was very afraid here.

She followed the line of rocks until they dead ended at the sea. She stood staring at the line of massive rocks and boulders, until she finally decided she would try to climb it. It rose slightly as it came out of the sea, and she could barely make out that there was grass on the top.

Maybe that meant water. So she began to climb, scared but determined. She was near the top when she heard the loud, deep call again. She turned to look and saw the griffons again. They were gliding high above her, and she watched in awe.

They were not extinct. She shaded her eyes to watch as they called again, then whirled and dived, swooping and playing in the open skies.

Smiling, she turned and climbed higher up the cliff. She found an outcropping, and just in time. She hadn't realized how far up she was, and she laid back on it, panting after having made the mistake of looking down.

She rested, looking up and watching the pair of playing griffons. They were both white as far as she could tell, but they were too far away to be sure. She rolled over and prepared to get up to continue.

Then she froze. Lying only a few feet away was a nest with three large white eggs in it. Now, Sheri wasn't a stupid mage. In fact, she was considered brilliant by her instructors. So it wasn't hard for her to recognize two things simultaneously.

First, that this was food. She and Alistair had to have food if they were to survive.

Second, that these were griffon eggs. She would have to kill three griffons in order to eat. If she wanted to survive, she would have to decide between them, and herself.

She looked back at the flying griffons. A tear slipped down her cheek, and she looked at the eggs. Lifting her hand to her lips, she blew them a kiss. Then she walked past them and climbed further up the cliff.

**

* * *

Part 14: Seeking Alistair**

There was no way, in that moment, that she could hide from the truth of what she was doing. She was once more betraying Alistair. She was putting the life of these griffons ahead of his.

But in her heart, she knew something else. Just as she would never forgive herself, he would never forgive her if she killed these beautiful, rare creatures. So she labored on for several more hours.

Fear gripped her continuously as she climbed. She focused hard on not looking down, and kept climbing. The sun was throwing long shadows across the land by the time she finally reached the top. She had been forced to follow a winding route in order to be up the steep cliff, and it had been hard.

Now she stood looking out across a plain of low grass. Small white, pink, and yellow flowers dotted the area. Most reassuring, though, was a very small pool of water reflecting bright orange in the setting sun.

She could barely get the canteen into it. She finally just cupped water with her hand into the canteen. Then, knowing it was unwise but too thirsty to resist, she stuck her face in it and sucked up as much as she could drink.

When she was done, she looked around. She hoped that the presence of moss on the rocks meant there was often water here.

She turned back and slowly began to make her way down the cliff. It was slow going, but she managed to get down to the outcropping. She set her foot down and heard a growl behind her.

Her heart stuttered and then hammered. She had no staff, but she could cast… she would cast, if she had to. But once more, she would be forced to choose between herself and these creatures.

She slowly turned and looked at the growling griffon. Its hawklike eyes bored into hers. Its feathers were standing up around its neck, a display of threat that she easily recognized.

Remembering something she'd read about dangerous animals, she looked down and away from it, trying to display submission, but not fear. She wondered if it could hear the powerful thundering roar of her heart.

She dared to look back up at it, avoiding meeting its eyes. It reached towards her, and much the way a human's nostrils might do, its nares flared and fluttered as it breathed in and out to sniff her. The slight fluttering motion seemed threatening to her, so she watched it as it began to slow and grow a bit calmer.

Then she realized something else about them. She didn't know a thing about birds that she hadn't read, but she'd always dreamed of having one for a pet. She remembered reading that one sign of illness in a bird was when the nares seeped with pus. Similar, she assumed, to a human having a stuffy nose. Except that birds wouldn't open their mouths to breathe, and could die if their noses filled with too much 'snot'.

She looked down and away again, hoping the creature would back off a bit. After a few moments, its feathers still mantled into an intimidating crest, it did slowly back away over to its nest.

Sheri relaxed and then slowly gathered magic power. Whispering the chant, she let a Heal wash over the creature. It blew and snorted, then cocked its head to contemplate her. Sheri knew that the spell would not make the creature well, but it would ease the symptoms and discomfort significantly.

She could only hope that might be enough to make it let her escape and go back down to Alistair. She had been gone too long, and she feared what condition he might be in by this point. But without water, he would die. That couldn't be questioned.

She'd had no choice, but now she felt a deep, pulling urgency to get back to him. Creeping slowly, keeping her eyes averted, she scuttled across the ledge and down.

**

* * *

Part 15: Seeking Alistair**

She climbed down, panting and terrified, as well as sore and aching. The way down was treacherous and it was dark already. A steady fear ate at her as she slowly made her way down. She was now not only terrified of the climb down, but of the wild, powerful creature she somehow felt she had narrowly escaped.

By the time she got down, she had to sit and rest for a bit. But she knew she had to go back to Alistair, so she got up and trudged painfully back to their camp. To her very great relief, he lay much as she'd left him. She felt a moment of terror that he had died, and rushed over to him.

But when she rolled him over, he opened his eyes and looked up at her. "Sheri?" he asked dimly.

Taking in his dehydrated state, Sheri knew she'd gotten back just in time. He couldn't take much more of this without water. So she began to trickle water in his mouth. He grabbed her hands and tried to make her increase the pace, but she took the water away until he promised weakly to go slow.

Everything she knew, she knew from books. But that didn't stop her from following it, anyway. So she made sure that he got some water, but not too much, then she crawled slowly over to set another fire to stave off the growing chill.

She was very worried, and as she laid down to rest, she couldn't help but look back at Alistair, his face lit by the flickering campfire. His lips were chapped and cracking, with bits of skin standing up from them like scales. It was a sign of severe dehydration, and it scared her. Her heart sank as she realized she would have to go for more water the next day. He might not survive if she didn't, especially since they had to share what little water the canteen would hold.

It wasn't really enough for two people to live on indefinitely. That was the part that scared her the most.

She slowly slipped off to sleep, watching him the whole time. Even with his chapped lips and sunburned skin, and a good two or three days' grown of beard… he was incredibly handsome. She knew she wasn't ugly, but no matter how often she'd been told she was pretty, she just couldn't quite see it.

She was lucky that he did, though. But she rolled onto her back and looked at the sky, lit by moon and stars and nothing else. Sleep closed over her even as she felt tears come. Would this beautiful, good man ever be able to forgive her?

Would she ever be able to live with having betrayed him, not once, but twice?

With the wings of griffons flying above them, and the wings of death waiting nearby, she slept across from him at a steadily burning fire.

The next day, nature, perhaps in cahoots with the spectre of death, or maybe simply arbitrary and capricious, attacked them yet again. Sheri woke in earliest gloom of the new day to the patter of rain on her face.

Sitting up, she looked around for some sort of structure. Unaware, she and Alistair had disobeyed the first law of survival: They had failed to find shelter. Even as she tried to find a way to get them out of the rain, it began to increase, until even Alistair sat up, slowly and dizzily.

Sheri wracked her brain until she realized that there was a small outcropping some ways down the cliff. It might be sufficient at least to keep them dry. She dragged a protesting, obviously miserable Alistair after her and headed for it. She cast a Heal on him, and was gratified to see that at least some of his discomfort was alleviated. Like the griffon, she couldn't cure him, but she could make him more comfortable—for a time.

"Please stay here," she told him.

**

* * *

Part 16: Seeking Alistair**

She was glad to see the small area sloped upwards. She laid Alistair in the back of it, gave him more water, and then went to see what she could do to catch some rain. When she got back, she set the pots out so that they would fill with water. Then she went to get some of the corn out of the stash—which seemed fortunately out of the rain, when she noticed the puddles of water on the backpack.

Picking up the rope, she moved further up the beach, to where the single, twisted, and stunted tree grew. Carefully, she used the rope to tie the backpack to it, with the top open. It was crude, and she couldn't be sure it would stay, but it was the best she could do.

And it saved her from having to climb the treacherous rocks in the rain.

She trudged back, finding one of the pans already partly filled with water. She picked it up and poured it into the canteen, then went back to sit beside Alistair, with the pan sitting right outside of their tiny little hamlet.

She woke Alistair and gave him more water. His skin seared her with its heat, and she felt a worried fear rise in her. She had survived it, but she knew by how weak she was that it had been a close thing. Would Alistair be so lucky?

She cast another Heal as he groaned. At least she could ease him and make him more comfortable.

But even as the Heal washed over him, he shocked her by sitting up and looking at her with fevered, bright eyes. Boring into her with those gleaming golden orbs, he growled, "You betrayed me! You betrayed Ferelden!"

He rolled over on top of her, and she felt a sudden desperation flare in her. She couldn't bring herself to attack back. This was Alistair, and feverish as he might be, she loved him and she couldn't hurt him—again.

"We needed—" She meant to argue that they'd needed Loghain. To try to present her arguments to him.

But his lips claimed hers and his leg shoved between hers at the same time. His lips, scratchy and dried, chafed against hers as he sought into her mouth with his questing tongue.

Fear blossomed beside the arousal as he roughly pulled at the skirts of her robe. He was ill and fevered and… yet everything indicated that he was ready to make her pay for what she'd done by taking her in the least sensitive or compassionate manner possible when the recipient is fully willing.

But then he had her skirts up and his finger was slipping inside her. She was already wet, her body hadn't needed anything but knowing this was Alistair to become aroused. Unbidden, her arms curled around his neck and she buried her fingers in his hair as her body arched towards him.

Then he pulled away and sneered down at her. "You would let me do anything I wanted to you, even knowing how much I hate you."

It wasn't a question, and his finger shoving roughly inside her told her it wasn't a compliment, either. She felt herself go pale with shame. He was right. She would. She'd probably even beg him to—even knowing he hated her.

He rolled away from her, leaving her body feeling bereft, ravaged, and achingly empty.

"Go away." It was curt and cold, and Alistair rolled away from her.

She stood up and fled, fighting with all her will not to cry until she was far enough away that he wouldn't hear it. She wanted him so much that half of her tears were from the sheer frustration of the incomplete encounter. The muscles between her legs twitched and clenched as if to find what they had been denied.

Her heart did the same, denied its satisfaction, as well.


	5. 17 through 19

**Part 17: Seeking Alistair**

She walked along the beach toward the stunted little tree that she had hung the backpack from. As she walked, she felt the encroaching cold and worried that it would become worse. The extreme from hot to cold was distressing and worrying for her. She got to the tree and found a small amount of water in the bottom of the backpack. Enough to keep her and Alistair in drink for several days.

Relieved, she went back and got the pans from their first camp. Dumping them into the backpack, she sat them back down so they would get more water. Leaving them there, she turned to take a walk. She would check on Alistair soon, she promised herself, but not yet.

Looking around, she was surprised to find the area shrouded in a dense gray fog. She walked towards the cliff, intelligent enough to realize that it would be a solid guide in the encroaching dim grayness.

But rather than going back, she turned the other way. She wasn't ready to see Alistair yet, and they needed food. She wasn't sure what she hoped for, but she wandered along, searching for something to eat.

She came upon some elfroot, and carefully harvested it. It was very good news, especially since it was an unusually large patch of it. As she'd been taught, she didn't take it all. Some had to remain so that more would grow the next year.

Moving further along, she began to feel like the cliff went on forever. It was surreal to her, the fog shutting away all of the rest of the world, so that it was just her, and fog, and part of the cliff.

Her breath sounded loud to her, even the whisper of her robe in the sand and her footsteps magnified by the encroaching mist. It was both peaceful, and yet strangely lonely.

Well, it was… until a beak, followed by sharp, bright eyes emerged from the mist right in front of her. She shrieked, so surprised at the unexpected appearance of the griffon that she couldn't stop the involuntary reaction.

It jumped, its nares flaring and its feathers mantling up around its head in threat display. But then the feathers dropped as she stood panting and looking down, trying to show fearless submission as the books had taught.

It snorted at her, and she looked back up at it. 'Squawk!' The sound reverberated off of the cliffs and made her jump. She realized it was looking tired and that the feathers around its head trembled slightly. Was it still sick, she wondered?

Casting a Heal, she watched as it jumped as the light surrounded it, but then mantled down even more as it felt the refreshing spell wash over it. 'Squawk!' it screamed at her again before flapping away.

Grinning, she muttered, "You're welcome!"

It seemed to her that the griffons were probably as smart as the Mabari. It had known she'd made it feel better, and had come back for more. It warmed her heart, and almost made her feel better.

Until something fell beside her and started flapping about. She panicked and jumped back before she realized it was a fish. Hardly daring to believe it, she felt a thrill of joy run through her. "Thank you!" she shouted, seeing only the swirling disturbance in the mist that betrayed the passing of the flying creature that had bestowed a somewhat clawed, still living fish on her.

Turning, she ran for camp as fast as she could go, pausing only to walk long enough to get her breath back.

Alistair was sitting up against the back of the small shelter.

"Look!" she told him, forgetting for the moment that he had told her he never wanted to see her again. "Fish!"

**

* * *

Part 18: Seeking Alistair**

"You caught a fish?" he asked incredulously.

She laughed. "No way. I would have no idea how to even begin to catch a fish. The griffon gave it to me for healing her. Well, I think it was for healing her—"

"Are you fevered again?" he broke in.

"No. Are you still fevered?" she asked in turn, not realizing he was insinuating something with the question.

"Yes," he told her. "Maybe that's why you're carrying on about griffons again. It must be MY imagination."

She stopped and looked at him. "No need to be rude, Alistair. Do you want fish to eat, or not?"

"Sure," he told her. "Just clean it and scale it and cook it the way it is."

"Oh, can I use the sea water to clean it? And what does 'scale it' mean?"

He sighed. "I don't mean to clean it that way. I mean you have to take the guts out. You can't leave them in to cook it."

She felt ill suddenly. "Take the guts out?"

"Yes, Sheri. Cut it open and take the guts out. Then use a knife to scrape the scales off of it. Then wash it, and you're better off not using sea water, but if you have to, you have to."

She felt ill. And not only from his angry, mocking tone of voice. She had to cut out fish guts? She wasn't sure she could do it.

He laid back down, and she knew she couldn't ask him to as a snore erupted from him almost immediately. She realized belatedly that she hadn't even made him drink.

Understanding that she had little choice in the matter, Sheri picked up a knife and started hacking at the fish. Finally, she managed to get it cut open and she tried to use the knife blade to dig entrails out.

She realized the irony of the fact that she could fight a battle without hesitation, but she was feeling totally squeamish about this. That was why she had decided to be a healer, though. She hated it more than she could express, and healing had been her way out of having to fry people.

But she hadn't escaped having to fry fish, it would seem. So she did what she was told and scraped the scales away after finally gritting her teeth and digging organs out. She did eventually quit retching, though. She almost felt like she had accomplished something at that point.

Some time later, the smell of cooking fish began to make itself known. It might have been the single sweetest thing she'd ever smelled. The poor fish lay helpless in the iron pan, and she did know enough to flip it over now and again.

Fortunately, she had cooked fish before, she she'd know if it was completely cooked. The problem was, she'd always been given fillets, and this was a whole fish, so she had no clue how long to let it cook.

But finally, she decided it must surely be finished. She pulled the pan out, and sliced at the fish. She was thrilled to find that, indeed, even the center was cooked, although the outside was a bit chewy.

She couldn't wait, and despite slight burns to her hands and mouth, she blew slightly to cool it off and gobbled it. It wasn't much, and she only ate half of it. But it was something, and it was life.

**

* * *

Part 19: Seeking Alistair**

She woke Alistair up, fearful of what kind of mood he would be in. He woke slowly, and stared at her in confusion.

"Eat, Alistair," she commanded him. He sat up with his head drooping and she felt fear tighten in her chest. "Alistair!" she said sharply.

He looked up at her and blinked foolishly. "What?" he sounded petulant and she grinned. "I'm so tired, can I go back to sleep now?" That part was wheedling and Sheri almost chuckled.

How very Alistair!

"You need to eat," she told him. She picked up some of the fish and waved it in front of his face until he opened his mouth.

He opened with a mock-angry look and she popped the piece of fish in. He chewed experimentally for a moment and then sat up a bit more. "That's really good. You're a great cook!"

Ah, starvation, the sauce of the Maker, she thought. It was plain, unseasoned fish and he was now voraciously scarfing it. "Careful," she warned. "There are still bones in it."

If he slowed down any, you couldn't have proven it by her. He ate it as if it were the most perfect of cakes. She was glad, because she wanted him to live. She hadn't come this far to let him die on her now.

When he was done and asked for more, she disappointed him by telling him that was all there was. But he accepted it and laid back down.

"I feel muzzy," he told her.

"You're sick, Alistair. I don't know if you'll pull through it or not." She could be nothing less than honest.

"Not something you can heal?" he was serious now, less boyish.

She liked him when he was boyish and fun. She wished she had good news that would take him back there.

"No, I'm sorry."

"Why are we here? It's so pretty here."

"Our ship sank."

He laughed at her and tugged her across his body.

"You're lying. You're petrified of ships." He brushed hair off of her face, grinning at her and looking expectantly at her.

"You're worth going on a ship for," was all she could think to say.

His face grew serious and he pulled her down to kiss her. This time, the kiss was gentle, light. He pulled her lower lip into his mouth and nibbled it lightly, then teased it with his tongue.

He rolled over until she was on her back and he was beside her, propped up by one arm. "That's a beautiful thing to say. Whoa… I feel dizzy and muzzy."

He laid back down and, to Sheri's mingled frustration and amusement, went right back to sleep.

She got up and cleaned up the mess from the fish, finding her way to the water mostly by sound. She decided to stay with him, and she laid down as near him as she could get; yet far enough away to not dampen him with her rained-on clothes.

He rolled over in his sleep and pulled her against him, though. So she allowed herself to lay against him and imagine for a while that it was a another time. A simpler time. A time before Loghain, who had ruined so many things.

Several hours later, the rain had stopped. Sitting up, Sheri looked down at Alistair and found him stirring as a result of her moving.

His eyes were glassy, fervid, and over-bright. A trickle of fear ran down her back at the way he looked at her.

"Sheri?"


	6. 20 through 22

**Part 20: Seeking Alistair**

"Alistair."

"You shouldn't be here."

She sighed. Where had she heard that one before…

"You're right. I shouldn't have followed you. I wanted to apologize to you and to tell you—"

"It's too late for that now." He shook his head at her. "Too little, too late, Sheri. Loghain was a murderer and a treasonous dog. I will never understand why you rewarded him."

"It wasn't a reward, Alistair! If you'd let me explain—"

"Explain what? What if Oghren killed me, and someone else turned him into a Warden to reward him for it? How would you feel? Or do you even care about me at—"

"That's not fair!" She was screaming and she didn't care. "That's not fair at all! I always loved you and you have always known it!"

"You can't love me and do what you did." His voice was calm, yet laced with so much outright fury and malice that she recoiled involuntarily. "You don't love someone and then…" He trailed off. "Never mind. Why should I explain it to you? If you don't know what love is, you never will. No amount of someone telling you will make you understand."

A sob broke through and she clasped her hand to her mouth. "You're hateful!" she snapped at him, her voice breaking over the words. "I wish I could hate you half as much as you hate me, just half!"

"You deserve no less," he ground out between clenched teeth, his fevered glare pinioning her with cruel precision.

Enraged, though some dim part of her brain told her it was nothing more or less than what she deserved as he had aptly pointed out, she grabbed the canteen and slapped it against his chest. "You'd better make sure you drink plenty of water. You want to make sure you live to finish the job of ripping my heart out—for real!"

She stomped away, flinching as the canteen was thrown at her, landing a few feet behind her. The wet sand made it very undignified, but she didn't care. Fade take him, she knew he was sick, but did that excuse the horrid, vile things he was saying to her? She fought again not to sob as she struggled away from the campsite.

**

* * *

Part 21: Seeking Alistair**

She went back to camp an hour or so later, not surprised to find him fast asleep again. She woke him and got him to drink from the canteen. He collapsed back into sleep without a word, his eyes vague and unfocused.

So she wandered up the cliff again, until she noticed something she'd missed last time. Not only had there been elfroot, but there were also a useful kind of mushrooms growing there. Not, sadly, of a safe type to eat, but of very high medicinal quality. When combined with the elfroot in proper quantities, it might be enough to not only cure Alistair, but maybe the griffon—if not several. Though she didn't know if there were others who were sick. The odds were high, as it was likely a bacterial infection from what she could see.

She had to climb, though, and the rock was slippery and wet. She managed to make her way up it, moving slowly and terrifying herself several times. But it wasn't long until she was harvesting them and carefully stowing them in her pocket.

Nearly down, she slipped and sliced her hand open, droplets of blood dripping down the stone and onto the sand. She could heal it quickly once down, but it was a close call, mainly because the maimed hand made the climb down to cast the spell incredibly difficult.

So moments dragged by, and she began to get a very strange feeling as she neared the bottom of the cliff.

Landing, she turned. She was face to face with another griffon, but this one wasn't 'her' griffon as she'd begun to think of the red-rumped one. This one was lighter in color, but much heavier. He, and it was definitely a male, was thick and raw with sheer muscle.

It dodged at her aggressively and screamed in her face with a throaty, deep 'squawk!' that almost made her lose control over herself. She thought surely he was going to kill her, despite her attempt to show passivity.

It stood still then, its neck still mantled up in apparent rage. Then, as they continued to stand silently, it reared up and roared at her again. She looked him over, trying to avoid the piercing, glaring eyes. She noticed belatedly that he was also seeping pus, and she realized that her question was answered—there was more than one sick griffon.

She began to cast the spell, and the creature started to leap back and forth in agitation. She let the Heal wash over it, and it stilled, looking at her in silence for long moments. Then it let loose with a powerful squawk and backed away, head weaving and bobbing in continued warning.

She then trudged back towards the camp. Her hand, despite being healed, ached slightly, and all she wanted was to go back and sit down. Maybe rest. She was still exhausted by the events of the day—well, the last few days, really.

But alas, it was not to be, because before she even got back, something dropped on her head. Another gift, no doubt. However, this gift was not as accommodating as the fish… it grabbed onto her hair with one of its claws and clung for dear life.

Shrieking, Sheri, now at the end of her emotional endurance, began to bat at the thing and swat at it until it finally went flying. It began to scuttle towards the sea again, and Sheri realized that not only was dinner disappearing, but so was the beast that had just pinched her so painfully that the skin around it was numb and already deeply bruised.

So she did the only thing a slightly hysterical, very hungry, rather irritated, and exceptionally tired mage could do.

She fried it with a lightning bolt to the ass.

Then she picked it up by said singed ass and carried it 'home'. There, she broke it open and removed the innards again, and then she stuffed it straight into the edge of the fire to cook in the shell.

Had the offending griffon bothered to ask her, she would have told him that next time he wanted a heal, he shouldn't do her any favors. When they finally got to eat the crab, Alistair picked the claw out of her hair and laughed at her, and the amount of food from the nasty, mean creature in no way seemed to merit the degree of difficulty of opening it.

**

* * *

Part 22: Seeking Alistair**

Perhaps, she thought, she might laugh about it if they survived this, but at the moment, it was simply more than she could bear.

Her mood was not improved when a few moments later, the clouds over her head opened up in a solid downpour that cut a line from their little haven—which she didn't happen to be sitting under at the moment—all the way down to the shore.

And which stopped no more than three feet away from where she was sitting.

She looked up at the sky, and asked rhetorically of the Maker, "You hate me, don't you?"

Whether the answer was in the form of rain, or the rainbow that appeared over her head the moment she looked back down may be up for debate for others. But Sheri herself was reasonably certain that between nasty, mean griffons and strangely selective rainclouds… there was no room whatsoever for doubt.

So later that day, after a miserable, uncomfortable nap, when Alistair woke up and asked for what felt to her like the thousandth time why she was there, she stood up and threw her hands wide.

"Because the Maker hates me. That's why. Why else? What else could possibly make sense?"

He sat blinking at her in feverish, foolish surprise. "Oookay. I'm not following that, but okay."

"I'm going to sleep."

"I'm hungry, are you going to make dinner?"

"No!" She didn't mean to yell at him, but she really felt like she couldn't take any more of it. "There's nothing to cook, Alistair. Nothing!" She curled up on the sand, trying to mound some of it up to give her head a place to rest. "Just go to sleep."

Sounding like the old Alistair, he said, "How am I supposed to go to sleep hungry?" he asked rather petulantly.

She was about to use a spell on him when he started snoring. Walking over to him, she pulled him straight so that it stopped, and went back and laid down.

The next morning, she got up and made a few poultices, then she took the mushrooms and some elfroot and made a curative draught. It would work, or kill him. She wasn't sure which one she hoped for more.

When he woke up, she gave it to him. He took it, but complained very bitterly about the taste. An hour later, as she was making another one, hoping she would be able to give it to the griffons if she could just figure out how, he woke up and yelled at her yet again.

After asking the inevitable question, of course… why, by Andraste's left tit—and she had to credit him, she'd never heard that curse before—was she there?

Spitefully, certain he wouldn't remember it later anyway, she said, "Because the Maker hates us both!"

She said it so furiously that he actually recoiled from her, and she felt a guilty satisfaction at doing to him what he'd done to her repeatedly over the last couple days.


	7. 23 through 26

**Part 23: Seeking Alistair**

She knew the curative would take time, but she had hoped he'd sleep through it. She really didn't want to deal with him anymore in his fevered, incoherent state. While intellectually she knew he was not responsible for what he was saying, a part of her also knew that he wouldn't say something he wouldn't normally think—even if he wouldn't normally say it out loud.

The longer he remained sick and intractable, the less she cared about trying to make up to him for what had happened with Loghain. It was painful to realize, but she knew it was the truth. She wanted to escape his anger almost as much as she wanted him to live at that point, and it was beginning to feel ever more urgent.

He complained about the lack of food and then went back to sleep. She ignored him, grinding the herbs between two stones.

So for several hours, she worked on the herbal concoction. When she had made four more, she put the rest away, her back aching and her arms tired from grinding so much. Standing, she stretched painfully and wandered off along the shore. She had explored the cliffs somewhat, but now she wanted to explore the shore.

Walking along, she noticed rocks ahead again. The water was breaking on them, powerful gouts of water and mist rising into the air, followed by a sucking roar as the surf rushed back out again.

She climbed up on the back part of the outcropping. It stretched out into the sea and around, creating a very small, sheltered little cove. Sheri knew nothing about it, except that it was peaceful compared to the powerful crashing of the waves on the rocks around it.

Climbing down, she found that it was small enough that spume from the breaking waves washed over her in a soft mist each time one crashed against the line of large stones around her. She then saw a few other things that made her dare for a moment to be thrilled.

There was moss growing on the rocks, as well as small shelled things she remembered eating as a very rare and extremely special treat when she had visited a Noble once with one of the senior mages. She hadn't liked them at all, but it didn't matter because it was them or death.

Not only were there multitudes of these shells growing on the rocks, but she almost saw seaweed. Some of it was growing there, but some had been uprooted and brought in from the sea. It was possible that it could be a continuous source of food.

Hopeful, she gathered up a bunch of the shells and began to gather up seaweed. She could only hope it was edible, as she'd read. She knew some wasn't, but realized that at this point it was experiment or die.

It seemed as if the Maker had changed his mind about her and thrown her a bounty. As she was picking up the seaweed, a smaller crab than the one dropped on her head scuttled toward the water.

Grabbing it quickly from the back—afraid of the wicked claws—she threw it further back up the beach and then hit it with a bolt of lightning. She poked it cautiously a time or two until she was sure it was dead.

**

* * *

**

**Part 24: Seeking Alistair**

Carrying her bounty with difficulty, she crawled over the rocks and headed back to the camp. Along the way, she saw a few clumps of a tasty, common herb and picked them up. She would add them to the pot and hopefully it would be tastier. Not that it needed it, as hungry as they were.

When she got back, she took out the larger of their two precious pots and filled it halfway with seawater for salt and flavor, and halfway with their dwindling water supply. Then she added seaweed and cleaned the crab.

Carefully portioning out the herb, she added some to the cookpot, and then started out breaking open the other shells.

"What's going on?"

She looked up to find him watching her, surprisingly lucid. Could he be better?

"Making lunch, dinner, and breakfast," she answered. "How're you feeling?"

"I think I'm beginning to suspect that I might live," he told her, sitting with one arm draped over a knee. "How're you doing?"

She sighed. She knew he didn't know what an ordeal the last couple days had been, so he wasn't asking that. "I'm fine, almost recovered." She decided to answer in the spirit of the question.

"That's great news! I was really worried."

She dropped some more of the small, slimy little things into the pot, hoping they would cook up to be a lot less… well, slimy.

"That doesn't look very appetizing." Alistair reflected her thoughts. "Need any help?"

She sighed with relief. If he was asking that, he was probably feeling better. "No, I'm almost done. Maybe when the crab is finished."

"So any idea where we are?"

"I don't have a clue. If we're on an island, I doubt it's charted. But then I don't know much about ships and have no idea how long or how far we drifted."

He nodded. "Me, either."

He rubbed his face. "I'm going to take a dip," he told her. "Try not to stare." He grinned.

She fought the flip-flop of her heart. Was he flirting with her? After the last few days, the idea was ludicrous and she blushed.

"Not to worry, Alistair." She didn't look at him, just found herself banging angrily on the shells of their dinner.

He walked away without another word, and she sighed with relief. She had no idea how to react to him. Didn't know what to say or how to act. It was like dealing with a stranger—a stranger who looked like a lover.

She got lost in her thoughts then, banging steadily on barnacled clams as she thought angrily about the things he'd said and the way he'd treated her.

A low growl behind her made her go rigid. Gathering magic, she turned slowly to stare at the male griffon. He was growling at her, but his hackles weren't mantled up in threat.

She decided to give her curative a try. Talking conversationally, she said to it, "I'm sorry I have to do this to you, boy. I hope you'll understand and not kill me afterwards. I'm trying to help you. I don't know that you'll be willing to take this without me doing this to you. So I'm going to do it the hard way. I'm truly sorry."

Then she paralyzed him with a spell.

* * *

**Part 25: Seeking Alistair**

She picked up one of the draughts and pried his beak open. It was quite terrifying, really. The fear that he would come out of the paralysis early was very real. That he would turn on her when he did was just as real a possibility.

So she quickly shoved the cup into his mouth and poured. As the liquid ran in, she massaged his neck in a downward, gentle motion, forcing him to swallow it reflexively.

Then she washed him over with a Heal so that he would feel better, and ran like all the demons of the Fade were after her. She did not want to tangle with this beast. At all, for any reason.

She might survive the encounter, but she knew that to do so, she'd have to kill him.

Dread suddenly washed over her as she realized she hadn't warned Alistair, so she changed direction and raced towards the beach. When she got there, she didn't see him, and became panicked.

The sound of rage came from the camp, the griffon squawking and roaring. She flinched, almost regretting healing it enough for it to have the might to tear up their camp.

What had she been thinking!

After a few moments, the sounds ceased and she turned to go back. But as she turned, she saw movement from the corner of her eye. It was Alistair coming out of the water. Despite being ill, his body was as beautiful as ever.

She stared at him, trying to close her gaping mouth. She had almost forgotten how magnificent he was, with his muscles smooth and carved and jumping beneath his skin. It was hard to remember when he was naked that he was geeky and goofy. It was a strange discrepancy, really.

One would expect far greater confidence from a man so intensely handsome and powerful.

"So much for behaving yourself," her eyes snapped up to his face and she felt abject mortification set in.

"I was coming to warn you not to go back to camp yet," she told him.

He grinned. "Wait, don't tell me, attack of the griffons?"

She scowled. "It's not funny, Alistair. I paralyzed one in the camp and I didn't want you to get hurt."

He shook his head. "You've got to stop this, Sheri. I don't understand why you've latched onto this like it's some big joke, but it's not funny." He looked serious and angry.

"Alistair, trust me, I have—"

"No. No, never again." He cut her off and stalked towards the camp.

Well, so much for it all being better when he wasn't fevered anymore, she thought.

So she followed him back to the camp, where they found the whole thing in disarray. The pans had been flung, her carefully crafted soup dumped into the fire. The crab had been viciously attacked, bits of it everywhere. Claw marks were all over, in the sand and on the rocks.

She crossed her arms and glared at him. "Still doubt there are griffons?"

"Of course I do, they're extinct. I don't know what kind of game you're playing, but it's not funny."

She tried not to tell him that she hated him, despite the feelings welling up in her. She believed she was wrong, that much was true. But how much punishment did she have to accept before atonement was complete?

* * *

**Part 26: Seeking Alistair**

She turned and began to walk away. She couldn't take it right then.

"Go ahead, Sheri, run away. That's so like you."

She rounded on him then. "Really? It's like me!" she screamed incredulously at him. "I didn't run away when there was an Archdemon to fight. I didn't run away and leave YOU with all of two other Wardens to fight an entire army of Darkspawn with! I stuck it out to the end. I did whatever it took—"

"You betrayed Ferelden!"

"I never betrayed Ferelden! I stuck it out! I fought, and I nearly died! And where were you? Nursing your hurt in some bar, no doubt fucking anything that looked at you sideways, too!"

"So what if I was?" He growled it, his eyes narrow and his body tense.

"I did what was necessary. You didn't. You ran away. You dumped it all on my shoulders and ran away like a coward! And the worst part is that Duncan didn't tell us everything! If he had—"

"You're gonna blame this on Duncan? You're a real piece of work. I can't believe you have the guts to try to push it off onto an innocent person!"

"Innocent person? He didn't tell me about the nightmares. He didn't tell me about the hunger. He didn't tell either one of us the truth about the Archdemon!"

"You leave Duncan out of this!" he yelled. "He was a better man than you'll ever be!"

"Good, because I'm a WOMAN, Alistair! I'm much more practical than any man will ever be! I would have told you—"

"You knew what I meant. Don't be an Abomination!"

Aghast, she drew back. "Excuse me? EXCUSE ME? Just who do you think you are?"

"Look, Sheri," he began.

"No. No, you look, Alistair!" She put her hands on her hips in her fury. "You look, and you listen. I've put up with all the nasty, horrible things you've said to me for the last few days. I've heard all your anger and all of your hatred of me. But not once in all that time did I call you a name.

"Don't you worry, Alistair. Your opinion of me is more than abundantly clear. I don't want to hear it anymore. You don't need to tell me, I GET IT!" She stomped away towards the cliffs. Then she turned around and picked up the canteen before turning back.

"And you can make your own damned dinner!" she yelled.

"Are you coming back?" It sounded almost plaintive. But then, Alistair often sounded that way when he didn't get his way.

Love him as she did, she couldn't deny his faults.

"I doubt it!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Then as she stomped away—to the best of her ability on shifting sand—she muttered, "Go to the Fade, jerk." Tears betrayed the lie in her request, though, in spite of herself.


	8. 27 through 31

**Part 27: Seeking Alistair**

It could be said that she wasn't in her right mind when she made the decision to climb up past the ledge where the griffon's eggs were. It could be argued, safely, that she was too distraught by what happened with Alistair to recognize the lack of wisdom in basically assaulting a griffon and then climbing up to another one's nest.

Regardless of any excuses, however, when she was nearly up, she heard strange sounds and began to get scared. It dawned on her too late that her actions were well beyond unwise.

But there was nowhere for her to rest between there and the ground, and she had already climbed for several hours. She couldn't go on without a rest. So she kept going, until she could climb over the lip of the ledge.

What she found drove a stake through her heart. The mother griffon lay beside her hatched eggs, her ribs still rising and falling, but barely. The babies lay listless in the nest. They were all dying, of that she could have no doubt whatsoever.

Sitting down beside them, she looked around until she found a stone. Then she cast three heals to help the little ones, who barely looked any better afterwards. She began to grind the mushroom and the elfroot together. The rest had been destroyed by the male in his attack on their camp, ground into the sand and thus not recoverable.

So, weary and sore, she nonetheless sat until she had finished grinding the dosages. She picked up one of the babies, which responded with terror. At the sounds of her youngling, the mother cried out and began to try to crawl towards Sheri with a look of determination that Sheri couldn't help but revere—and fear.

So she paralyzed the mother, murmuring apologies and weeping. She stuffed medicine down the first one's throat, rubbing its neck to force it to swallow the foul-tasting concoction.

Then she did it for each of the others. Then she went back to working on the mother's dose, begging the Maker to let her finish up before the paralysis wore off. It was not to be that day, yet her prayer was answered in a less direct way. The dying animal could not move, having fought the paralysis until all of her energy was gone.

Sheri was terrified that the poor thing would die despite the efforts with the medicine. She finally finished. Sobbing and apologizing the whole time, she paralyzed the beast again. Then she crawled over and shoved the concoction down the female griffon's throat little different than she had to the babies.

Rubbing the soft feathers at her throat, she forced the griffon to swallow it. Then she crawled away, hoping only that they would survive—and so would she.

* * *

**Part 28: Seeking Alistair**

Sleep, like nature, can only be delayed so long… and thus it was that it claimed Sheri entirely against her will as she sat against the wall of the ledge. It was several hours later and the sun was setting when she awoke again.

She looked over to find the babies and the mother sleeping. She paralyzed the mother before going to inspect her. So far as she could tell with her complete and total lack of knowledge, there were strong signs of recovery. The nares were clean and, she thought, rather healthy looking. There was color in the skin around the beak again, and the breathing was slow and even.

She walked over to check the babies over the same way then. They also showed strong signs of recovery. It would take time before any of them were at full strength, including the mother, but they should—as far as she could tell—all live.

She gave each of the babies a drink of water, not sure when they'd last had food or water. Then she began to climb up the cliff. But before she had even begun, she heard the sound of wings behind her and turned around.

Her heart hammered with terror. The male landed on the ledge, a fish clutched in his beak. He dropped it, screaming at her with a startlingly loud, terrifyingly close 'squawk!'. She cowered against the ledge, unable to pretend she wasn't afraid. When the beast reached down and began ripping the fish apart, she nearly lost it.

Her heart roared in her ears as it fought to escape her chest and flee. She clung to a bit of roots hanging from the wall behind her and tried not to hyperventilate.

To her surprise, though, the creature ignored her entirely, feeding the babies strips of fish. They ate eagerly, and she would have smiled if she didn't feel like she was going to die any second.

Then the male stood and padded over to his mate. He dropped the fish in front of her and nudged her. He laid down and nudged her again. He tugged at her then, gently pulling on her neck feathers.

Sheri almost shrieked when the male then turned his head upwards and growled a long, low growl. Then he made a shrill, trilling whistle that sounded like song.

A mournful, sorrowful song filled with loss and grief.

Sheri's heart constricted. Did he think his mate dead? Was he mourning her? A tear ran down her face as the male laid his head down and then rolled over, as if begging his mate to stand up.

He rolled back over and nudged at her, rubbing against her face. Soft sounds of pleading whimpered from his beak and Sheri almost sobbed.

She had never dreamed these creatures would react in such a way. But she could not deny his love and his sorrow.

She decided to risk everything. At that point, in her heart, she felt she had nothing left to lose.

"It's okay," she said, choking on her sorrow at his display of loss and grief.

His head turned towards her and he growled. "She's okay. She's not dead. Everything's going to be alright."

He crouched and what could only be a snarl caressed past her ears with cruel promise.

"She's just sleeping, I paralyzed her so I could give your babies medicine. She'll be okay, I swear. She's already better."

He looked down at his mate and then back at Sheri. He nudged his mate and sniffed at her prone form.

Then, unexpectedly, the female came to. She surged to her feet, then turned to her mate. With squawks and chirps, they practically danced around each other. Quietly, Sheri made her way up the cliff.

She couldn't help but smile, despite the misery of the last few days. She had saved the family of griffons. It was a point of brilliant joy in the midst of a painful experience, and she cradled it to her heart.

* * *

**Part 29: Seeking Alistair**

First, when she got to the top, she got more water in the canteen and drank from the small pool. Then she laid down on the ground and looked up at the sky. It was now late night, possibly even early morning.

The sky was a vast canopy above her, dotted with sparkling pinpoints of hope. She felt strangely at peace. Despite the knowledge that she had failed utterly with Alistair, she felt more useful and worthwhile than she had in a very long time.

The man she loved hated her, that much was true. But she had saved those griffons, and the knowledge made her feel truly good. She slowly drifted off to sleep to the sound of the distant waves.

She woke when the sun kissed her face, and stretched. Rolling over, she looked out across the plain of flowers and grass. It was beautiful, if in a stark, sparse way. She sighed as her stomach growled in protest. Sight-seeing wasn't going to feed her, she supposed.

When it came, the attack was altogether unexpected. Mainly because she was positive she was alone up there.

She was starting to stand up when she was struck from the back with enough force to knock her forward onto her face. Another strike knocked the wind out of her for a second. She rolled over, only to find that she wasn't under attack at all…

"Stop throwing them on me!" she screamed at the departing pair of griffons. Then, realizing her fish were trying to get away, she grabbed them up and bashed them with a rock.

After which, she promptly retched a few times.

She considered climbing down to use the knife, but she was so sore and tired that she couldn't contemplate it honestly for long. So she began to search around until she found some sharp stones. They weren't exactly sharp compared to a knife, though, so it was a long and frustrating chore to get the fish gutted and scraped.

Then, though, she was left facing the fact that she had no fuel for a fire, and no way to start one. Near tears of frustration, she carried the fish along with her to look around the high plateau.

To her surprise, she saw another plateau somewhat below her. This one was long and stretched out below her. The best part, though, was that there were trees! Trees, and unless she missed her guess, a fairly large pool of water under an outcropping.

She made her way down, slipping and sliding. She finally reached it and trudged the long distance to the massive outcropping. It was shelter of a sort, littered with stone and with a cold stone floor, true enough.

But she could gather up enough wood to make a fire for cooking, and she did so. When she realized Alistair still had the flint and tinder, she could have wailed with frustration.

"What's wrong with me?" she said suddenly. "I'm a mage, I don't need flint and tinder!" She felt pretty proud of herself on that one. Struggling to control the bolt, she hit the fire with lightning. It ignited with a roar, and she dropped backwards. "Oops." Perhaps a bit less power next time.

Soon, though, she had the fish cooking. The scent wafted up to her nose and she was immensely grateful. She sat pondering the fact that the griffons were obviously intelligent. Any average animal wouldn't even know she had helped, much less that it had been specifically her who had helped.

It was no wonder the Wardens had once allied with them. They were beautiful, useful, and intelligent. If rather loud, aggressive, and rude. Someone should really teach them to throw food TO people, and not AT people.

* * *

**Part 30: Seeking Alistair**

She ate almost all of one of the fish. When she was done, she went to the pool and drank deeply. She decided to spend the rest of the day there, and go the next day to Alistair. She knew he would need water probably in the next couple of days. She tried not to feel guilty about not taking fish to him right away, but she had to admit that she was just too weary to make the trip.

She wandered a bit, finding more elfroot, mushrooms, and several other kinds of spices. She then went back to her camp, listening to the sound of the shore below and the calling of the griffons.

She didn't realize she had drifted off until a soft sound woke her. She sat up and saw two griffons lying near her. They were grooming each other with an obvious air of tiredness, even resignation.

They turned to look at her, and she realized immediately that these were not 'her' griffons. Their bodies were matching brown, not the reddish or blondish ones she had saved.

"You're sick, too, aren't you?" she asked them. Standing up, she walked over and picked up the herbs. "It's going to be a bit, okay?"

They snorted at her, and she began to grind the herbs. It was a while later that she had two balls of foul-tasting medicine. Hoping she wouldn't need to paralyze them, she walked towards them. When the male mantled and growled, she stopped.

She placed the two 'pills' on the ground and stepped back.

They got up and slowly crept over. They each grabbed one, throwing their heads back and swallowing them down. Then they backed away, growling at her the whole way, before flying off.

She sat smiling in their wake. There was more than one family of griffons! She couldn't believe it. She could only hope that, perhaps, if this couple had eggs, they hadn't hatched yet. Maybe they wouldn't become sick if their parents weren't.

That night, she had Darkspawn dreams that turned into nightmares. Loghain turned into a Darkspawn and took the throne, laughing maniacally at her and forcing her to marry a turned Alistair, who chased her down dark corridors.

She woke early and she woke melancholy and unhappy. She got up and headed back up to the high plateau, then began the long climb down the other cliff towards the beach, cooked fish hanging off of her belt.

When she reached the griffon ledge, there were only the babies, who squawked and yelled at her for food. She chuckled and left them, certain their parents would bring them what they wanted.

Reaching the bottom, she headed towards the camp where she'd left Alistair. Nearing the campsite, she saw that he wasn't there. She felt mingled relief and disappointment, each jockeying for top position in her feelings like two Mabari scrapping over a bone.

She laid the fish beside the fire pit, now black and empty, and poured the water from the canteen into the waterproof backpack.

"Where in the Fade have you been?"

"Hello Alistair."

"I've been looking everywhere for you! I thought you got swept away into the sea or something even worse!" He was angry, accusing. Little different, really.

"So just how long was the celebration when you decided that had happened?" she asked him, unable to keep the bitterness from creeping across her voice like a cloud across the sun.

"That's not funny."

"No, it isn't funny! And it's not funny because it's true. You should have just let me fall into the water and die, Alistair. It would have been better than being stuck here with your hate and your cruelty." She poked the fish with a foot. "Eat up. My imaginary griffons brought you a fish."

He grabbed her arm as she turned to walk away. "Where are you going?"

"None of your business, Alistair."

"It is my business. You're a Warden, I need to know where you are."

"Yes, I'm a Warden, but you're not the boss of me, Alistair. You left it all. You walked away and forfeited any right to call yourself a Warden. You gave up everything to get back at me for doing what had to be done."

* * *

**Part 31: Seeking Alistair**

"Really? Because I remember it differently. I remember you forsaking everything it means to be a Warden by making a treasonous, evil man into a Warden."

"You know what your problem is, Alistair?" She poked him in the chest as he crossed his arms to glare at her. "You never understood what it meant to be a Warden. You had this pie-in-the-sky ideal that Wardens are these white knights running around saving everyone and making miracles happen.

"But I'm going to let you in on a little reality, Alistair. The Gray Wardens have a saying. Maybe you've heard it. 'Do whatever it takes to defeat the Darkspawn.' Ring any bells, Alistair? Hmmm?" She knew she was being angry and rude now, but the words just kept falling out, rain splattering into the torn water of her heart. "Wynne died during that battle. Buddy died. Remember Buddy? Yeah, that dog loved you. You left him to die. Sten died in that battle. Riordan died in that battle. Loghain died killing the Archdemon.

"Now, I want to ask you a question, Alistair. That's five people right there. There were hundreds—and I do mean literally hundreds—of other people who died. Yet do you really think that three of us stood a chance? What do you think the odds are that three people in a sea of hundreds can die? Pretty damned good!" she finished it on a yell.

"But Duncan didn't tell you that whoever deals the killing blow on the Archdemon is destroyed by it, did he, Alistair?"

When he went white, she knew he hadn't known.

She stepped back. "So you, or I, or Riordan would have had to kill the Archdemon. I tried to do it, but Loghain stopped me. He saved me and took the final blow himself." She turned away from him then, fighting the hurt that welled up in her, the fear and apprehension. "That would have been me, or you, Alistair. One of us would have died, because Riordan never made it that far. We were three people against a sea of Darkspawn."

She fought the tears. "So many died. The carnage was terrible. It's the Maker's providence even Loghain and I made it to the Archdemon. You have no sense of reality, Alistair. Just your ideals and your endless, boundless optimism. I couldn't afford to indulge that sort of optimism, so I had to be the bad one, the evil one."

"You're not evil, Sheri—"

She cut him off. "Just shut up, Alistair. I've listened to all you had to say. You must have lived out every single revenge fantasy you had on me while you were sick. I know what you really think."

She turned around to walk away when Alistair was hit on the head with a dead nug. A moment later, a fish fell between them. They both looked up to see the second pair of griffons winging away.

Alistair stood staring after them, his mouth hanging open and the nug still draped ridiculously over his head.

In spite of herself, in spite of the seriousness of the discussion, Sheri burst out laughing.

When Alistair stared at her, she said smugly, "You look like you've had a dead nug dumped on your head by an extinct griffon."

A slow grin spread over his face. "They're real!"

It was said with such childlike wonder that Sheri's breath hitched and her heart sped up.

"Yes."


	9. 32 through 33

_I just wanted to take a moment to give HUGE thanks to those who have devotedly reviewed. I'm very grateful, as I truly, greatly enjoy reading the reviews, so it means a lot to me. My great thanks to you._

_I also am grateful to those who alert and favorite the stories and myself. Thank you for that, that also feels great!_

_So thank you, thank you, thank you! I appreciate all of you tremendously!

* * *

_

**Part 32: Seeking Alistair**

Now, Alistair was not a devious person. In fact, as a general rule, he was against manipulation, and would have adamantly argued against anyone who claimed his manipulation was… well, manipulation. But all of that aside, the simple truth was twofold: he was beginning to think he might have been wrong, and he was lonely.

It could be, as well, that he was motivated by the love he held for Sheri, a love that he fought to deny to himself and everyone else.

"I'm definitely going to need help with this," he told her.

When she narrowed her eyes to glare at him, he tried a different tactic. It used to work on her, maybe it still would. He smiled, his best, most 'you-know-you-wanna-help-me' smile.

A surprised look flashed across her face before she narrowed her eyes further. He stepped closer to her, looking down at her, still smiling. "You wouldn't want to offend the griffons by refusing to eat what they gave you, now would you?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You're up to something, I just know it," she accused.

He tried to look wounded, but he knew she was going to stay. He knew her, and he knew when he'd won.

They squatted in the sand and he began to clean their 'catch'. Sheri began to build up a fire to cook it on, and Alistair counted himself lucky to have been raised the way he had. Because he knew how to tan leather, and he knew how to live rough. The houndskeep had taught him, and now he realized that he'd done him perhaps as large a favor as had Duncan.

They soon had nug and fish cooking by the fire.

"How about a truce?" he offered.

She glared at him. "No. I came to find you to apologize. I had so many things to say to you, and I felt so terrible—"

"If you felt terrible, why are you justifying it?"

"It was the right thing, Alistair, but the right thing isn't always easy to do."

"Fair enough. Truce now?"

She looked at him and spluttered a few times. "Just like that?"

She looked so beautiful with her hair all falling down out of its tie and her robe askew. He reached out to tuck one of the errant strands away.

He watched her lips as she said, "Alistair?"

"Sheri…" He leaned closer. Just one kiss wouldn't hurt anything.

"Are you fevered again?"

A slow grin crept over his face. Speaking of fevered, she sounded breathless and uncertain. If either of them wasn't well, it was probably her. But he had his hopes it was… something else.

"Yes," he told her anyway. "I am terribly feverish." He leaned in closer and kissed her. Her hands circled him and twined through his hair. A thrill ran through him as he deepened the kiss and her breathing grew ragged.

She pushed him away and turned from him. He sighed. Why couldn't anything be easy?

"It doesn't work like that for me, Alistair. I can't just make out with someone who hates me."

He laid down on his back and looked at the sky. "I can't believe there are still griffons in the world."

"Are you avoiding the issue?"

"No." But he was. He couldn't say, 'I don't hate you' because she'd never believe it. "It's been months. You could have come after me any time, but you didn't."

"Really, Alistair? I could have? I could have just left the castle in shambles, left the Gray Wardens in shambles, ignored every bit of duty I had? Maybe you could have—oh wait, you DID!—but I couldn't. You had a choice. You had someone to dump everything on. I didn't. It was all on me, and me alone. I was the only real Gray Warden left."

It hurt to hear. He couldn't deny it. She was right, and it cut into him. "I was so angry, Sheri. It was Loghain! And you always told me how much you cared—"

She interrupted him. "Loghain was needed. It had nothing to do with you and I. I spared Isolde only because of you. I hated her as much as you hated Loghain, Alistair. Maybe more. I hated her so much that all I wanted was to beat her face in and rip her entrails out and make wreaths with them—while she was alive."

He felt his stomach twist. Who'd have thought she was so bloodthirsty?

"But she didn't deserve to die, he did!" he protested. He couldn't understand her hatred of Isolde.

* * *

**Part 33: Seeking Alistair**

She turned away from him. "Really? She didn't, Alistair? She took a ten year old boy and shoved him into the kennels with the dogs. That's cruelty to begin with. But that wasn't enough for her. She treated that ten year old boy viciously and with cruel spite.

"But still, not enough for her. She kicked that boy out and into the Chantry, into an institution renowned for giving orphans barely—at most—survival level care. Then those orphans are turned into work horses for the Chantry.

"Yet later, she is so selfish and gripping about her own child that she tries to hide him so she can keep him… and causes him to become possessed. When that happens, does she do the right thing, STILL? No. She purposefully tries to get Bann Teagan killed to still protect her poor little boy.

"Now, where was even an ounce of that protectiveness when it came to you? Nowhere, that's where! She was cruel and vicious to you, and then got hundreds of people killed in a bid to protect the child she spoiled and set up as being above everyone else.

"And you know what your problem is?" she rounded on him then, and her face was a mask of anger. "Your problem is that if she did to any other child what she did to YOU, you would be all on my side. You would be outraged, infuriated. But she did it to you, so you can't see the problem."

She stood up and dusted off her robe.

"She deserves it simply for what she did. That she did it to the man I love does make it that much worse. But what she did was no less cruel and capricious than what Loghain did. Loghain got Duncan and Caillan killed, yes. But all of those people at Redcliffe, Alistair, they had families, too! They had people who loved them! And she did NOTHING to save those people, she just let her son continue to slaughter them!"

"Okay," he said. "I get it, you hate Isolde."

He cringed again as she scowled at him. "That's all you take from this? I spared her for you, Alistair. I spared her to spare your feelings. She's a monster! But I spared Loghain to save Ferelden. And you were greedily thrilled by me sparing your feelings, and you were cruel and hateful for me sparing the WORLD! Selfish asshole!"

She walked away from him then. "Hey! Where are you going?"

"Leave me alone, Alistair."

He laid back and looked at the sky. Fine, he would leave her alone. Then he realized that he'd said that to her, and he had hoped she would follow him and say she was sorry. He realized as well that if he let her go, she might not come back for a day. Or two. She sure stayed mad for a long time.

He got up and trotted after her, trying not to be too obviously in a hurry to reach her. "Wait. Sheri, please. Can't we just get along for a while? Please? We're all alone here, and—"

"Is that your idea of an apology, Alistair?"

He shrugged. He wasn't sure what he was supposed to say now. "I just want to get along with you, Sheri. I don't want to argue or fight." He ran a hand through his hair. "I don't hate you, and you're not evil. I don't agree with what you did still, but I understand why you did it and that you felt justified in it—"

"Justified? Do you need to justify Isolde still being alive?" Her hands were on her hips again, and he backed away a bit.

"No, it's—"

"Then you really don't get it, Alistair. You should be justifying to me why Isolde is still alive, despite being the author of a couple of hundred deaths in Redcliffe village. But no, you aren't. You're just demanding that I justify a life that is already justified by his death."

She turned away and said, "And stop following me, Alistair. I'm not here to soothe your loneliness. I owed you an apology, and I've given it. That doesn't mean I have to pay for doing what I did forever. And I won't. Since that's what you expect of me, you can just stay down here and rot."


	10. 34 through 38

_I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate all of you who have commented and favorited or alerted... and to apologize for the long delay in posting more. I got sick AGAIN (yeah, seriously) and then I also had to repost all of my stories on another site I often go to._

_I am really grateful to all who read, and for all of your patience and kind understanding. Thank you so much, and I'm really sorry it's been so long._

**

* * *

Part 34: Seeking Alistair**

"Sheri, wait!" he cried after her, but she left him standing there with that kicked-puppy look on his face.

It hurt her that he thought they would go from pretty much him hating her to him kissing her without skipping a beat. The part that bothered her the most was that he didn't recognize that feelings should be a part of that physical closeness. And anger and hate wasn't one of those feelings, either.

So she left him standing there and climbed up the cliff. It was a long climb, and somewhat dangerous, but she had gotten to the point where she knew it well. She got to the top and started down towards her camp on the lower plateau.

When she got there, she headed towards the glistening pool in the distance, reflecting the shine of the waxing moon in a bright path across its surface. But before she could get there, she was disrupted by two agitated griffons.

This was a whole new pair, she thought, but couldn't be sure, their bodies were too pale to see the color of in the moonlight.

They snorted and jumped in front of her, rearing and scrambling. She had no idea what they wanted.

"Stop it!" She snapped at them finally. "I have no idea what you want, and I won't, so long as you just keep freaking out!"

Something in her tone of voice must have gotten through to them, because they stopped, snorting and wheezing.

The female squawked at her, then flew over to the edge of the plateau. The male squawked at the female several times, fluttering his wings and prancing. Finally, Sheri decided to go see if the female perhaps was trying to get her to follow. Did they have a nest as well?

As she went to the female, the male leaped into the air, flying over her head and missing her by a hair's breadth. He swooped down and disappeared beyond the edge of the plateau. Keeping an eye on the female, Sheri laid down on the edge and looked over.

Below, she could barely make out another nest. Perhaps these little ones were ill, she thought, and decided to climb down and find out. She wasn't sure whether or not they were so far gone that immediate help was all that could save them.

So, she got ready, gave the female griffon a dirty look, and started climbing down. She realized quickly that she'd had an advantage on the previous descent because it had been an area she'd climbed down before. But here, she didn't know the area at all, and needed some light. So she climbed back up and took care of that issue before starting back down again.

The other thing that bothered her about it was that this area was almost sheer, where the other section had a grade to it. This was precarious and demanding climb, and there were a couple of times her heart was in her throat.

**

* * *

Part 35: Seeking Alistair**

As he'd climbed in her wake, the sun had gone down, causing the climb to become treacherous and frightening for Alistair. He knew that he'd faced death for months on a daily basis, and so he shouldn't be so terrified of it… yet he had to admit that he was.

He was very afraid. He didn't want to die this way. He didn't want to plunge to his death, rolling and bouncing down the side of a cliff to land broken and bleeding on the ground—if he didn't die on the way down.

A soft breeze brushed at his face, silent and soft. The only sound was his labored breathing as he struggled over yet another bounder. He looked back again and shuddered. He was so high now that even the distant roar of the sea was drowned out by his exhausted panting.

And beneath him, he could see only darkness. It was as if he was detached from the world and launched to a lofty height.

He leaned forward against the stones and groaned in fear. Why had he ever followed her? He was going to die here, and who knew how long it would be before she found him? Would she find him? Would he be torn apart, fed to those baby griffons he'd passed?

He stepped up onto another rock, its surface sloping enough to make him fearful, and pushed onward. When he reached the top, it was sudden, and he stared in surprise. Grasses, small and stunted, met his surprised gaze, leading to darkness beyond.

He pulled himself up to the plain and walked out onto it. It felt strange to him, disorienting, to be so high and yet on a flat, wide plain. Beyond it, he could see the shimmering line of the moon reflecting off of the sea. Enchanted, he walked towards it, until he reached the far side of the plain—not nearly so large as he'd first thought.

As he reached the edge, he could see by the light of the moon that there was another grade here that led to another long, flat plain, this also shrouded in darkness. He wasn't sure which way Sheri had gone, and he had just decided he would rest there before going on when a bright light flared off to his left.

Caught by it, he looked to see her, small and distant, with a wisp now circling her head. A griffon was beside her, and his heart flew to his throat as it challenged her, dancing and squawking so loudly that he heard it even from where he was.

Then to his horror, she laid down and eased over the side of what was obviously another cliff and vanished. His heart was seized by terror, until he realized he could still see the glow of the wisp over the ledge.

Sighing, worn out from long illness, climbing, and the rush of adrenaline-laced fear, he started carefully down the side of the cliff towards the second, lower plateau. By the time he got there, he could only make out the barest glow, and headed that direction.

Plodding along, he nearly stumbled right over the edge, so abruptly did he reach it. He stopped, once more fully alert, and looked over. He sat down, dangling his feet over the edge.

Not all that far below him, he saw Sheri, hands on hips, haranguing the pair of adult griffons. He grinned and settled in to watching it. For whatever reason, he found it immense fun to watch her when she was in her bossy, businesslike state.

**

* * *

Part 36: Seeking Alistair**

Sheri managed to make it down to the ledge where the griffon babies were. They lay curled in the nest, sleeping. It was nothing short of adorable, with their bodies tangled together.

But the problem was the one below. She laid down and looked over the edge. She saw movement and could make out the small creature's plaintive cries. This group was older than the other ones, and Sheri realized immediately what had happened.

It had gone exploring and fallen to the lower ledge. She cast a Heal, gratified to hear its surprised, curious chirp. But then, it immediately got up and started wobbling towards the edge again! With a curse, she cast a paralyze spell just in time to keep it from falling off that cliff—this time with certainty, to plummet to its death.

Then she took the belt off of her robe and fashioned a loop out of it. Reaching down, she found that she couldn't quite get it around the tiny creature's belly. Straining, she finally decided to try using her hair clip to grasp the rope and pull it around so that she could then pull it through the loop and snug it around the baby griffon.

For long, agonizing moments, as the duration of the spell ticked away, she struggled to get the rope onto the fragile clip. She grasped it once, pincher-fashion, but the rope slipped further from her. Groaning in fearful despair, she tried again.

Fortune smiled upon her, as she managed to entangle a frayed big of the rope on the clasp. Quickly she summoned it towards her with deft fingers working the clip sideways. At last she was able to grip it with the clip and lift it up. Grabbing it with the other hand, she pulled the end through the loop and pulled it snug around the griffon's belly.

She let out a huge sign of relief and began to pull the little griffon up when the paralysis spell broke. She hadn't readied herself to use it yet, so she could do nothing but pull the struggling, hissing, squawking thing up as quickly as she could.

It wasn't far, of course—the matter of just over an arm's length—but by the time the little thing was up, it was spitting and fighting, and the male was fully mantled, screaming at her with a father's pure rage.

She set the protesting baby down, still wrapped in the robe rope. Then she put her hands on her hips and rounded on the angry male adult.

"How dare you?" she yelled at him. "You come pestering me to save your kit, and when I do, this is the thanks I get?" She pointed at him, "This is your fault, anyway!"

Too angry to notice, she carried on even as his feathers began to droop back into place and his head began to lower.

"What kind of idiot puts his children on a ledge when they're going to be walking soon? Clearly, you should know by now that they're not born with some instinct that will keep them from falling. How many times have all of you made nests on ledges and let your kits walk right off?"

His head was positively drooping now, and the female landed beside him as the kit at Sheri's feet began wrestling with the rope around its ribs.

"You would think that creatures as smart as you would learn better the first time and move them! It isn't as if there are any predators on this island that could kill them if you did it in a reasonable place. Don't you come snarling and snapping away at me when I save him, after you nearly knocked me off the ledge to begin with!"

The female was now looking equally as wilted as the male. But Sheri wasn't done yet, her heart was still thundering from the fear that the baby would fall before she could rescue it.

"It's no wonder you're nearly extinct when you do stupid things like this!"

She whirled in surprise when she heard Alistair's voice behind her, "That's a little harsh, isn't it?"

**

* * *

Part 37: Seeking Alistair**

"I don't think so," she defended herself. "They almost lost a kit! It nearly died. And I don't think saying so is harsh! Fools, the lot of them, I say." She realized then that most of her anger was really coming from her own feelings towards herself and towards Alistair.

"I'm going to hand them up to you, and we're going to take them back to my camp." She picked up the one she'd just rescued and pulled the robe belt off of it. She began to climb up to Alistair.

"I don't think mom and dad are going to be too keen on that," Alistair argued.

She scowled at him. "Just do what I tell you, can't you, please? Just this once?"

"Sure, sure," Alistair said. Then he raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Do I get a reward later for my unquestioning obedience?"

She gasped and stared at him, mid-climb. Then she clasped her mouth shut and glared. "Yes, Alistair," she said sweetly. "I'll let you live through the night. And maybe even the next day!"

"Excellent!" he said. "That's more than I can say for that cliff you made me climb."

She climbed up and handed him the end of the belt. "You'll need to lower it to me. I'll put the kits in, and you'll haul them up one at a time. I'm going to paralyze them all, so we'll have to act fast. We won't have much time after the spell wears off."

He nodded, and when she got down, she used the spell that would paralyze everything near her chosen spot. She focused to include the mother and father, as well… she wasn't sure how they'd react, and she didn't want to know at the moment.

The sad truth of the matter was that these kits would die if they stayed where they were. She didn't want to see that happen. She decided that she would fight with the parental griffons after the kits were safe.

They did the work quickly, Alistair lowering the belt so that she could wrap it around the next griffon kit. She was slightly amused at the positions they'd frozen in, but didn't let it deter her from getting them quickly up and to safety.

There were only three, so it was quick enough that she was even able to scramble back up and they had started towards her camp before the little things began to squirm and wail piteously in their terror.

Wrapping the two she was carrying in her arms, she pulled them close and comforted them.

**

* * *

Part 38: Seeking Alistair**

The pair of adults whirled around them in the air, squawking and diving at them. None of their swoops came close enough to hit, but it was unpleasant and fearful for both Alistair and Sheri. Sheri pushed quickly for the camp, and Alistair, despite having been sick, hurried in her wake.

When they got there, Alistair grunted and looked around. "This looks cozy," he told her.

"It's not perfect, but it'll do," Sheri told him, sitting down with the two kits.

Hers were still squirming, but when she looked over at Alistair, she was surprised to find his was snuggled into the crook of his arm, head burrowed through so that the beak was poking out the other side.

"He likes you," she said with a grin.

She sat her pair down, one of whom ran straight for the parents, the other of whom turned around and started scolding her immediately.

"Me," she said, "not so much, I guess."

They both laughed, some of the tension draining out of them, especially as the parents were sniffing at their offspring and not attacking—yet. The little one left Sheri and waddled towards her parents. When she got there, she apparently hadn't said all she'd had to say, and started scolding them in loud, bossy little squawks.

"We should call that one 'Sheri'," Alistair said. "She's just like you—with more legs."

At Sheri's glare, he lifted an eyebrow again and continued with a cheeky grin, "But not as cute?"

"Ugh, Alistair, I'm still mad at you. Stop trying to charm me."

"Is it working?"

"No!" she snapped, though with little genuine denial.

"Well, Buddy says you're lying," he told her.

"Buddy? You named it 'Buddy'?" She laughed at him.

He tried to look wounded, "Well, he's my little buddy! I mean, look at him, he's all wadded up and sleeping already!"

Sheri fought a yawn, possibly brought on by the mention of sleep. "I'm going to go to sleep, myself," she told him.

"Oh, can I come?"

She sobered and scowled at him. "Sure, if you want to be Buddy food."

"Are you suggesting that I might lose a limb if I try to cuddle up with you?"

"Or something…" she left the statement hanging pregnantly in the air as she went over to the bedlike nest she'd made of grasses and leaves.

"Where's my bed?" he protested.

"Down the cliff," she muttered before rolling over away from him. "Good night, Alistair."


	11. 38 through 41

_I just want to take a moment to tell my friends who read that I'll be catching up on their stories as soon as I've caught up a little bit with this one. I'm feeling really harried, getting sick twice in a row pretty much has played havoc with my life. Thank you for understanding._

_And a huge thank you to those still reading and reviewing. I really appreciate your loyalty, thank you so much!_

* * *

**Part 38: Seeking Alistair**

The pair of adults whirled around them in the air, squawking and diving at them. None of their swoops came close enough to hit, but it was unpleasant and fearful for both Alistair and Sheri. Sheri pushed quickly for the camp, and Alistair, despite having been sick, hurried in her wake.

When they got there, Alistair grunted and looked around. "This looks cozy," he told her.

"It's not perfect, but it'll do," Sheri told him, sitting down with the two kits.

Hers were still squirming, but when she looked over at Alistair, she was surprised to find his was snuggled into the crook of his arm, head burrowed through so that the beak was poking out the other side.

"He likes you," she said with a grin.

She sat her pair down, one of whom ran straight for the parents, the other of whom turned around and started scolding her immediately.

"Me," she said, "not so much, I guess."

They both laughed, some of the tension draining out of them, especially as the parents were sniffing at their offspring and not attacking—yet. The little one left Sheri and waddled towards her parents. When she got there, she apparently hadn't said all she'd had to say, and started scolding them in loud, bossy little squawks.

"We should call that one 'Sheri'," Alistair said. "She's just like you—with more legs."

At Sheri's glare, he lifted an eyebrow again and continued with a cheeky grin, "But not as cute?"

"Ugh, Alistair, I'm still mad at you. Stop trying to charm me."

"Is it working?"

"No!" she snapped, though with little genuine denial.

"Well, Buddy says you're lying," he told her.

"Buddy? You named it 'Buddy'?" She laughed at him.

He tried to look wounded, "Well, he's my little buddy! I mean, look at him, he's all wadded up and sleeping already!"

Sheri fought a yawn, possibly brought on by the mention of sleep. "I'm going to go to sleep, myself," she told him.

"Oh, can I come?"

She sobered and scowled at him. "Sure, if you want to be Buddy food."

"Are you suggesting that I might lose a limb if I try to cuddle up with you?"

"Or something…" she left the statement hanging pregnantly in the air as she went over to the bedlike nest she'd made of grasses and leaves.

"Where's my bed?" he protested.

"Down the cliff," she muttered before rolling over away from him. "Good night, Alistair."

* * *

**Part 39: Seeking Alistair**

Alistair woke up with a start. "Ouch!" he yelled, sitting up so abruptly that the griffon kit sprawled on his chest and pulling beard hairs out by the root fell with an undignified 'squawk'.

"Why you little traitor!" he grumbled, rubbing his chin where he'd lost a hair to the little wretch. "That's a fine thanks for hauling you off of a cliff just last night!"

The offending kit cocked his head and squawked, before batting at Alistair's finger and pouncing on it.

"Ow!" Alistair yelped again.

"What's wrong?" Sheri asked as she walked up behind him.

Petulant, Alistair told her, "The little monster bit me! Look, I'm bleeding."

"Well, just be glad he's a baby. If he was an adult, he'd have taken your arm off."

"Don't I know it, too," Alistair told her wryly.

"Speaking of adults," Sheri commented as she dumped a bunch of wood beside the fire. "They're over there, and they don't seem to be angry enough to kill us."

She squatted down to start a fire, but Alistair grabbed the robe belt that had been left lying beside the spot he'd chosen to sleep. With a flick of a wrist, he wrapped it around her and jerked her back onto his lap in a single, fluid motion.

"Sheri," he said in a low, warm voice that turned her stomach molten. "What's bothering you now?"

She looked away and scowled, trying to get up. "You already know the answer to that, Alistair."

"No. You know I'm sorry, and you know I was sick. It's not like you to hold a grudge like this. I may not have known you all your life, but I'd like to think that I've gotten to know you better than to believe this is really you. Something else is bothering you."

He flipped her down onto her back beside him and propped himself up on an elbow, looking down at her. When she started to move, he threw a leg over her, hooking his calf on her thigh and pulling her closer.

She glared at him. "I can still cast, you know."

"I know. But you won't." The slight smile left his face. "Tell me what's really bothering you, Sheri."

Stubborn, unwilling to expose the truth of how raw her feelings were, she clung to the obvious. "You know. You were a jerk while you were sick. More than was fair."

"And you would never hold it against me—because I was sick. So there's something else."

When he reached up to brush hair out of her face, it broke the floodgates inside her. The combination of sexual tension with the aching hurt made her look away and take deep gasping breaths as she fought the sobs that threatened to overwhelm her.

"Please?" He had learned early on how to strip her of the hard emotional defenses she'd built in the Tower.

"It's not bad enough that I chased you away with Loghain. Now I… it's my fault we're here. We're going to die here, and it's all because of me." By the time she had finished speaking, she knew he could barely make out what she was saying, she was sobbing so hard.

* * *

**Part 40: Seeking Alistair**

"I was the one who decided to go to Antiva, how can you blame yourself for that?" Alistair sounded surprised.

"If I hadn't been chasing you, you wouldn't have gone." Despair rolled over her. She couldn't do anything right.

Alistair started laughing and she stared at him in offended surprise.

"I kept joking that I was going to go to Antiva and learn rock climbing, and chase women. So here I am scaling cliffs to chase my favorite one. And better yet, there's no competition for her." His face was lit up with amusement. One of the griffons squawked and he laughed openly. "Except for griffons." He quirked that recalcitrant eyebrow at her.

But she couldn't join him in his humor, a testament to the sorrow she was engulfed in, that even his considerable charm couldn't drag her out of it. "Alistair, we're going to die here."

His broad grin eased to a simple smile. "The others knew you were coming this way, didn't they? It'll be okay. They'll figure out that we've been shipwrecked and they'll send someone for us."

"No, Alistair." She felt overwhelmed by the pain tearing at her heart and the tears rolled again. "It's not that simple. They think we're going to Antiva. They don't expect to hear from either of us for a very long time. So even if it were a matter of them knowing and sending someone, we would still probably be here for years—if not forever."

He lost the smile, but his boyish exuberance had not yet been lost. She realized that it was that which she ached for the most. To see him lose his eternal optimism was going to be the greatest pain of the whole experience for her.

"They'll know when the ship doesn't come in to the port," he argued. "You've got this stubborn negative streak, Sheri. You've got to learn to lighten up."

"Move, Alistair. Come with me."

He rolled over and let her up. She took his hand and dragged him toward the edge of the plateau. Waving her hand expansively as they stood looking far down at the beach below, she asked, "What do you see, Alistair?"

* * *

**Part 41: Seeking Alistair**

Alistair looked out across the vast, beautiful vista in front of him. Far below, a golden, sandy beach stretched for a good distance, waves cresting over the sand with sparkling waves of white that receded back into the brilliant blue water in an eternal dance.

"I see a beach," he told her. He smiled again. If one had to be shipwrecked, it was a beautiful place for it.

"What else?"

There was a stand of trees on this side, taller than the ones up on this plateau. They nestled against blue-gray stone that rose toward the sky. "Trees, and cliffs."

"What else, Alistair? What do you see out in the water?"

He turned his attention to the sea. Standing like lonely sentinels, great monoliths of stone rose from the azure depths, forgotten golems dropped there by a gigantic, unseen hand. The water struck them with unrequited fury, breaking into sprays and flying through the air in bright white curtains.

"Giant rocks," he answered her question, quite captivated by the beauty of this rugged, uncompromising place. "It's beautiful here."

"Yes." Her voice was subdued. "It's amazing, for certain. But ships can't come here, Alistair. The very thing that adds beauty to this place is our jailor. If any ship tries to come for us, it will be torn apart on the rocks in the water."

Alistair felt the world spin around him. Would this be their final resting place? This cold, austere—albeit beautiful—place where the greatest of beauty was the deepest of treachery.

He sat down heavily. He stared out across the water, a bright blue cloth thrown haphazardly upon the world. Bright baubles of stone littered it, ringed by white setting of crashing water.

It was beyond beautiful, the scene before him. It held an intensity and grace he'd never imagined possible.

The thought struck him that it was so much like Sheri. The most beautiful, intense woman he'd ever known. So splendid that she had captured him. So magnificent that he couldn't let her go. A gilded trap that he would never escape, despite her betrayal.

He winced. He knew she'd done the right thing now. His thoughts were unfair.

Yet they persisted. He struggled with himself for some long moments before another thought protruded.

"But we have griffons—" he began.

She shook her head. He saw her face and his heart fell, clenching into a tiny little ball of fear. "Have you ever ridden an animal? Do you even know how? We have no leather for harnesses. No buckles, no connectors. Even if either of us knew how to train them, we couldn't stay on one without a harness. And the distance is too great for them without rest."

Suddenly bitter and afraid, Alistair told her, "You'd fit right in at the Chantry. Always 'no we can't, no we can't'."

She said nothing, and he looked at her, her bright hair gleaming in the morning sun. Even here, even now, without any comforts of society, she was stunningly gorgeous. He stared at her, wanting her to say something back. Wanting to argue, to vent the rage boiling inside him, teasing and tugging at the taint that whispered always through his blood.

Then he saw a tear fall, and the rage melted in the face of it.

He pulled her against him, "It's not your fault, Sheri."

He held her there in the sunlight on the edge of the plateau, looking out across the soft blue velvet that their island jewel sat upon. He laughed suddenly.

"What's so funny?" Her voice was muffled against his tunic.

"I have both of the Jewels of Thedas." He lifted her chin to look into her eyes. "What man wouldn't envy me?"

She didn't get it, and he didn't care. He brushed away the tracks of her tears and then kissed her.


	12. 42 through 45

_Thank you so very much to my friend Earnest, to my friend alyssacousland, and to every one of you awesome people who review so frequently. I'm grateful to each and every one of you. It means so much to me to know that I am keeping the faith with these characters and telling you their stories in a way that makes you love them as much as I do. Thank you, thank you, thank you!_

_Sexual content advisory...  
_

* * *

**Part 42: Seeking Alistair**

Alistair's lips touching hers drained her resistance away immediately. He moved just enough so that she found herself falling backwards to the ground. His body covered hers, a focal point of heat and electricity.

He moved against her, and she groaned, his teeth nibbling at her lip and his hips thrusting against her driving her suddenly mad with lust. She felt faint and wrapped her leg around him, the other trapped beneath him.

Her hand tangled into his hair, and she felt his urgency as powerfully as her own. A hand grasped her skirt and pulled it up her leg.

She gasped and arched against him, until water hit her in the face like a frigid wave.

"No!" she gasped, pulling her lips from his only with a great deal of effort.

"What is it?" he asked, hurt openly apparent on his dear, expressive face.

"I… I can't. Not right now, Alistair." Her stomach did flips as she sought a way to both reassure him, and extricate herself.

He sat up, moving away, his face a mask of hurt. "I understand."

"No, you don't, Alistair! It's… it's a woman thing. I—"

He blinked at her in surprise for a moment. "You're on your courses?" He looked relieved, if a bit green around the gills.

"No! No, it's not—" she fought the furious blush that threatened to overwhelm her. For all that they'd been lovers before, they'd never actually spoken about that openly.

He was looking crestfallen again, and she struggled to convey the issue without humiliating herself. She sought to reassure him, yet she didn't want to expose her own embarrassment to do it.

At last, realizing she had little choice, she said, "Alistair, I don't have a lot of feminine care items with me. I can't do things like wash my hair properly or other sorts of things. Things that make women more attractive to men…"

He was staring at her, a perplexed look on his face.

"I can't shave myself, Alistair. I'm hairy, and I don't want you to see me like that!" She wanted to just curl up and die, she was so ashamed and self-conscious in that moment.

"Really?" he sounded amused. "So am I. I haven't shaved in days." He turned towards her again, grinning through his beard—he was almost unrecognizable had she not known all along that it was him.

His grin had changed entirely now, though, containing a sort of mock threatening gleam. "There's no proof that I'm really Alistair. Maybe I'm the Korcari Bear-man!" He started stalking towards her, very slowly. "The Korcari Bear-man doesn't care about minor things like hair on women."

She was backing away now, giggling at him, crab-walking in reverse. "I'm serious, Alistair!"

He smirked and cocked his head, crawling forward again. "Who's Alistair?" he asked, his voice low and gravelly. "I'm the Epic Beard Man of Jewel Island, come to claim my hairy bride!"

She rolled over and jumped up, fleeing towards her camp, laughing so hard she could barely run.

* * *

**Part 43: Seeking Alistair**

He caught up to her quickly, and they tumbled to the ground, laughing. "I have a lightning spell, Alistair, and I'm not afraid to use it!"

"I'm afraid that's not possible," he told her, his face going… almost… serious.

"Whyever not?" she asked him, raising her eyebrows incredulously.

"Haven't you ever noticed that none of the mage guys have hairy chests? They're all hairless on their bodies. True fact, everybody in the Chantry knows it." He was grinning hugely at her now, mirth dancing at the corners of his eyes.

"Really?" she asked. "You've inspected them all?"

"No need, no need. See, they're all hairless because growing hair on your body makes you unable to cast magic. I mean, look at poor Irving. He hasn't cast a thing in years." Alistair leaned forward and waggled his eyebrows at her. "Another well known fact in the Chantry."

"Is that so?"

"That's so. So you see, you can't lightning bolt me because you're hairy." His lips quirked with humor. He slid a leg between hers. "So you are helpless before the Epic Beard Man of Jewel Island."

He kissed her again, pulling her close as her arm slid around his neck. When he thrust against her again, she groaned. She was going to give in, she knew it. She couldn't resist him at his most charming, and his boyish fun side was her downfall—it had been from the beginning.

His hand slid to her breast and he kneaded it through her robe.

* * *

**Part 44: Seeking Alistair**

Her body was lit up with a raging fire deeper than any she'd ever felt. She'd loved him for almost as long as she'd known him. But here, in this barren, stark place, with the sun watching and the griffons playing nearby, there was a deeper sense of connection to him than she'd ever felt.

His hand on her body made her arch and twist, her breathing ragged and close in her ears. Their breath mingled as they kissed and she felt that uncoiling heat shimmer between her legs.

She forgot to feel shy, she forgot to be concerned over what he might think of her. She forgot everything except the sweet feel of his hands on her. She groaned and panted as he worked at the ties of her robe.

At last, as frustrated with his efforts as he was, she pushed his hands away and helped undo the lacing.

He pushed the robe up and then over her head. She remembered, then, as his calloused, rough hand traveled along her ribcage towards her hip. "Oh, Maker, Alistair, I can't! I really can't!"

He looked at her, and she saw… she thought she saw… she stared at him. Was that love?

"Sheri. What have I done to make you think that I'm so shallow that I can't see past circumstances?"

The hurt in his eyes, more than the words, made a tear trickle down her cheek. It shouldn't have been that simple, but it was. She let go of the fear that he would find her ugly.

"Nothing," she said. It was a strangled cry more than a spoken word. "Oh, Alistair, I'm sorry."

And she wrapped her arms around him, curling through his lengthening hair. She wrapped a naked leg around his hip and pulled the dearest man in all of Thedas back against her body.

He kissed her as if he were drinking the finest of wine, with a sweet sense of savoring that made her ache somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

But life, in its way both fantastic and mysterious, let her linger only an instant before the liquid fire between her legs took over and she was clawing at his clothes with a need even more desperate. She tugged and pulled until his tunic was gone.

Then she pulled so hard on his breeches, that he laughed and objected—mildly, though.

Soon he was naked, and Sheri couldn't stop staring at him. She wanted him inside her so badly that she could barely think, barely function. She pressed against him, her hips, of their own accord, shifting and curling against him as if to take him in through sheer will.

* * *

**Part 45: Seeking Alistair**

He didn't hesitate, the invitation in her writhing body as it thrust against him, more than he could handle. He found her sweet body seeping lubricant so copiously already that there were trickles on her thigh.

It was incredibly arousing, her body's undulation against him and her soft cries causing him to seek her heat and wetness in a dance older than Time. He shoved into her, not waiting, not gently. He was fueled by a need that consumed him, and he pulled out, curling his head into her shoulder as he thrust into her again.

She cried out, an inarticulate sound escorted by the ragged sound of her breathing and the slap of their bodies as he shoved into her again and again. Her breasts rippled as he thrust into her, and he leaned on his arm to watch in fascination.

His eyes met hers, and he felt his lust grow exponentially upon seeing the desire in hers. His urgency came out in an involuntary, low growl and he pulled her leg up so that he could fill her yet more deeply.

Then he kissed her, thrusting his tongue into her mouth in time with the crashing of their bodies. He shifted his hips slightly, twisting just a bit as he thrust into her, pulling back to watch as her head dropped back and she gripped the grass in clawed hands.

She cried his name, and he felt a sense of smug satisfaction come over him. She was close, he could feel that she was close, so he shifted again, letting go of her leg to slide his fingers between them.

Finding the nub of her clitoris, he flicked against it. It hadn't taken him long to learn how much she loved it, and he had not forgotten. Just as he'd expected, it caused her eyes to fly open and she panted his name again, "Alistair, please!"

He thrust harder, losing himself in the pleasure of her heat and the thrill of watching her writhe beneath him. When she came, he groaned as her whole body convulsed, then laughed breathlessly when she hit him so hard in the head that he knew he'd have a fat lip.

But the muscles contracting on his penis distracted him from it, and his own grunts and groans sped up as he gave in to the sweet sensation. He released inside of her, his scrotum contracting and his penis pulsing in time with the fading aftershocks of her orgasm.

She gasped and clung to him, looking faint and bemused. He collapsed on top of her, supporting himself with his upper arms so that he couldn't crush her.

He kissed her neck and whispered, "I missed you, Sheri."

A soft sob escaped her, and he looked at her with a worried frown. "Did I hurt you?"

"No," she said, a tremulous smile wavering on her lips. "No. I missed you, too, Alistair. I'm so sorry."


	13. 46 through 50

_Thank you so very, very much to each of you who have commented, and reviewed, and favorited, and alert-subscribed. Thank you to those who have suggested my stories to others._

_Thanks so much to alyssacousland who has been a dear, dear friend and so patient with me!_

_You are all so awesome!_

* * *

**Part 46: Seeking Alistair**

"And well you should be, too. I'm going to have a fat lip for days. I may have to tie you up or something. I'm not really sure just how the Epic Beard Man of Jewel Island punishes his wench, but I'll figure something out."

She glared at him. "I'm serious, Alistair!"

"So am I!" he said, trying as hard as he could to keep a straight face.

She laid under him, glaring and staring at him. Then the left side of her lips quirked. He started to grin and she lost it and laughed.

He let her laugh and then touched her lips lightly with his. "Everything's going to be okay, Sheri. I can feel it."

She sighed and ran her hand through his hair. "I can think of a million reasons why nothing will ever be okay. But I find myself believing you, because I believe IN you."

"Just wait til I tell the Bear-Man of the Korcari Wilds. He'll be so jealous!"

She laughed and punched him on the shoulder. "That's not funny, Alistair!" but her dancing eyes and the mirth in her voice belied the words and he rolled over so that she was lying across the top of him now.

She propped her chin on crossed hands and looked at him. "What are we going to do, Alistair? I know it's beautiful here, but what about when winter comes? What will we do then?"

"Well, Jackness taught me how to survive. He told me that the chances were good that I'd—"

"Jackness?"

"The hounskeep. Anyway, as I was saying, he told me that I'd probably find myself homeless someday, and if I did, I'd need to know how to live off of the land. If only he knew how correct his prediction was." Alistair let his hands wander her body as he talked. "He taught me how to build a shelter and how to preserve skins. He was even allowed to visit me at the Chantry and take me camping. He always made me survive out there without any outside help. It was fun, but hard sometimes."

He rolled her back over, then at her surprised gasp, laughed and rolled her the other way. "Wet spot?"

"Yes, and cold," she told him.

He grinned, forgetting about Jackness for the moment. "Well, I could keep you warm…" He waggled his eyebrows at her, gratified when she giggled at him.

He was even more gratified when she let him try… the really, really active way.

* * *

**Part 47: Seeking Alistair**

Several hours later, they had dozed off, fully entwined with each other. Grunting and snorting, Alistair woke up to Sheri pulling on his beard.

"What the Fade? That hurts!" He turned his head, only to find her waking and staring at him with blinking, unfocused, sleepy eyes.

"Hmm?"

He turned his head the other way. It wasn't Sheri pulling his hair at all… "Buddy! Stop that!" He thought perhaps he should have chosen a different name—the griffon was altogether too much like the dog he was named for.

Buddy sat down, looking rather silly and awkward as he did it, and started chirping. In between chirps, he would give the occasional long drawn-out squawk.

"I have no clue what he's saying, but he certainly has a lot to tell you." Sheri giggled as Buddy bobbed his head and continued chirping in a surprisingly conversational tone.

They got up and got dressed, shooting each other looks or even a grope here and there. The whole time, Buddy sat watching them, planted on his little mini-griffon rump and chatting away.

When Alistair and Sheri headed back towards their camp, Alistair turned and patted his leg. "Come on, little guy," he told the griffon who was now sitting and staring silently after them.

He got up and trotted along with them, going back to his conversational chirrups and purrs. Upon returning to camp, Alistair looked over to make sure that Sheri was busy with rekindling the fire. He grabbed a bit of the leftover fish and fed it to Buddy.

"I saw that, Alistair." Her voice was stern, her face slightly amused, though it was clear she was trying to be serious. "We can't afford to waste our food!"

"He's not a waste, he's my little Buddy!" Alistair protested. "Besides, how can you say 'no' to this cute widdle facey? Huh?" He held Buddy up against his cheek and rubbed against the fluffy little griffon.

Buddy grabbed a beard hair.

"Ouch! Well, that's animal gratitude for you, I guess." Alistair petted Buddy a couple more times before deposting the rolley polley little kit on the ground.

Several hours later, what they later came to call the 'Great Arrival' began.

* * *

**Part 48: Seeking Alistair**

From all over the island, which was now officially 'Jewel Island' to them, came griffon parents bearing griffon kits. Not only did they come with kits, but then they brought food… much to Sheri's chagrin.

As it would seem that, as of yet, no one had managed to teach them to drop the gifts somewhere besides on her head. She began to feel a bit like a moving target, although she was as much miffed by how amused it made Alistair as anything else.

Until he was decorated with another nug, this one still clinging enough to life to bite him on the ear, that is. At which point, he ceased to find it funny, especially since the next one was a crab that quite ungraciously attacked his poor rump.

Sheri laughed at the nug, but cringed at the crab, rubbing her own remembered pinch location.

They were pleased, though, because they could smoke the meat for winter. Alistair pointed out that it was definitely not too soon to begin. Winter would be scarce for all of them, and without their help, if they were like most creatures, most of the griffons would die. Their numbers were so few already that it was possible that they were doomed regardless.

But they would give them a fighting chance. Even though they'd never escape the island, the griffons deserved life.

So the next few months, while the griffon parents fed griffons and people alike, Sheri and Alistair labored to build a home and to smoke meat and work the leather of the nugs. They discovered the seaweed again—and discovered that there were two different kinds of sea barnacles that grew on the rocks. One that made them sick, and one that didn't.

The story is best not told, suffice to say that a new latrine was created after that, and they missed nearly two days of work. The griffons, fortunately, were unaffected by them, or all would have been significantly nightmarish on the Jewel Island.

As it was, though, Alistair and Sheri recovered and continued on with their preparations for winter. They laughed and played and explored, and studiously skirted issues of the past.

Despite their preparations, the first winter was cruel and hard, and multiple griffons died. With each new death, their spirits fell. The short days were barely warmer than the long, cold nights. They fought problems with the fire filling their stone dwelling with smoke until they figured out how to build a chimney hole that didn't allow snow in. They fought hunger in the latter part because they hadn't rationed soon enough. The largest of the pots was lost when a griffon kit played with it and dropped it off the cliff to become inaccessible to any of them.

But Spring came, as it always will. It brought flowers and life, and new eggs.

* * *

**Part 49: Seeking Alistair**

"You've been awful quiet lately." Alistair sat down beside Sheri where she sat with her legs dangling over a ledge.

"I miss people, Alistair. I know I was never the most friendly person, but I did like having people around me."

Alistair sighed. "I know what you mean." As if sensing his mood, Buddy slid his head under Alistair's hand.

On Sheri's other side, her favorite griffon, a female from the first nest she'd found, did the same for her. As Sheri ruffled her feathers and scratched her neck, purring erupted.

"The griffons are wonderful, but they're not very good conversationalists," she told him, looking down with affection tinged with sadness.

"Well, what do you expect from someone named 'Curbles'?" He grinned at her, then sighed when she only managed a weak smile.

Alistair picked up the long leather cylinder at his side and threw it with all his strength towards the ocean. With a flurry, Buddy leaped off of the cliff and rushed after it, all blond rump and flashing white feathers.

A moment later, he hovered out over the water for a moment, flapping back towards them in a leisurely coast. He dropped it—not, for a change, on Alistair's head, and landed for another go at it.

Watching the playful young griffon, he said, "When I was at the Chantry, it was so quiet that sometimes I would start screaming, just so someone would come and talk to me. The look on their faces was priceless!"

At Sheri's raised eyebrow, he said, "Didn't you ever do that at the Tower?"

She grinned slightly. "No, Alistair, I can't say that I ever did. I mostly just read and tried not to garner too much attention." She looked out where Buddy had taken to throwing the toy himself and then pursuing it. "And now, I would die for someone even just to argue with." She chuckled wryly.

They stood up and walked with the pair of griffons capering around them. They worked until evening, and made love with only the stars—and the griffons—to see.

When morning came, there was fresh dew on their blanket and their two griffon yearlings who were curled up against them. Shaking it off, they rose to the sight of mist encompassing all of their plateau.

The griffons went in search of food, landing with it still in their beaks. Curbles and Buddy scrapped for prominence in offering their food, while the rest simply dropped theirs and flew off.

Alistair and Sheri found that several of the nests—now on the top of the plateau near their homestead—had newly hatched kits in them. There were some twenty eggs, and so far, none of them had been attacked by the resident nugs or snakes.

* * *

**Part 50: Seeking Alistair**

They took a walk down to what they had begun to call the back shore. It was the southern part of the island, opposite the shore they'd landed on. They found more seaweed that had come ashore, and for the first time since the onset of winter, they had something new in their diet.

The following week was uneventful, but then one morning they were awakened by Buddy's crooning chirping. Sitting up, they were surprised to see that he had brought them a metal cup. He bumped it towards them again with his beak, cocking his head and crooning eagerly.

"You did a good job, boy," Alistair told him, standing up to pat him and fuss over the griffon for a moment before picking up the slightly battered cup. "Where'd you find this, ol' Buddy?"

The griffon jumped back and forth, obviously eager and excited.

"Let me dress first!" was Sheri's objection.

They both dressed quickly, and then followed as Buddy showed them towards the North shore. He laid at the top plateau with his paws hanging over, chirping encouragement and watching them make their way up the rocks, treacherous still from clinging morning dew.

When they reached the top, he ran across to the way down, and they looked at each other and shrugged. They reached the ledge where Sheri had found the first nest, and she told Alistair that, while it was a terrible spot for a griffon nest, she missed seeing little ones as she made her way past.

They got to the beach and found some wreckage strewn across the beach. A barrel that turned out to contain, of all things, flour. A chest that had some clothing in it. It fit neither of them, being too big on Sheri and too small for Alistair. Yet it was useful, regardless.

There was significant amounts of wood, obviously from the hull of the ship. They found, much to their sorrow, the bodies of two sailors, as well. They stopped and used some of the wood to create a trench, into which they dragged the bodies of the two slain men.

Their joy at finding supplies, meager as they were, was overshadowed by the discovery. But they continued to find a few odds and ends, their spirits reviving somewhat as evening approached.

Sheri found a small canister of sun-dried tomatoes, and a gigantic crate of area rugs. She was dragging the crate up the shore when she caught sight of Alistair's face. He was looking behind a rock and he had gone white as a sheet.

Walking over, she looked over his shoulder before he could stop her. The sound that escaped her was a scream of sheer heart agony. Her legs buckled and she dropped to the sand, sobs tearing through her, shaking and rocking her with their intensity.


	14. 51 through 53

**Part 51: Seeking Alistair**

She vaguely, distantly, felt Alistair's arms wrap around her. She tried so hard to get herself under control, to be strong… but she failed. Sobs tore from her, wrenched and torn from burning lungs by the fist gripping her heart.

The sand gave beneath her knees, and she wish for it to swallow her.

She could not bear the grief a moment longer.

And yet, moments passed as she sank deeper into the realization that Leliana had gone to search for them, and had washed up on the shore of the island… her rescue attempt to never be completed.

Her red hair waved lazily in the waves that lapped around her. Her face looked strangely serene as she stared blankly at the azure sky. One arm, as if to give her a pretense of immortality, bobbed slightly in the moving water.

Sheri groaned as the terrible sorrow, the overwhelming loss broke over her again, a titanic fist of an unseen colossus crashing down on her to bury her, heart and soul, in a spreading, creeping woe.

"No!" Someone was saying it, over and over again amidst choking sobs. Someone's ragged breathing and tearing weeping was mocking her own. No, it was her own.

She reached out a trembling hand to touch the still-vibrant tresses. Leliana's skin was cold, inhuman. Her hair was wet and cold, not heated as it would have been by a living being.

A knife cut into Sheri, burning across her very soul, leaving an abyss of lamentation behind.

Alistair rocked her and she could feel him fighting his own misery.

The burden of her friend's death, of her lover's sorrow, pressed in upon her. She felt crushed beneath the weight of it all, and staggered backwards, crab-walking away as if by doing so, she could escape the reality of it.

Suddenly, realization struck her, a hammer's blow of recognition. "We have to bury her," she finally choked out as she fought to get breath. To draw another in the face of the reality that they were up against.

"I'll do it," Alistair told her. His voice was low and choked. She stared at him for a moment.

"She came here to rescue us both. I will help."

Alistair's eyes as he looked at her held a wealth of misery. "You don't have the strength to do it right now, Sheri."

She cried out at the ache that the words stabbed into her. She gasped for breath, gulping and choking. He gathered her against him and she fought the horrible anguish that screamed through her.

He picked her up and carried her to their first 'camp' under the outcropping. Stepping out, he gave a sharp, high, loud whistle. The griffon pair winged back in from where they'd been sunning on the rocks above.

Immediately, Curbles sensed Sheri's distress and began to purr, sidling up to her and nudging under her hand. Sheri buried her face in the griffon's feathers and sobbed brokenly. When Alistair told Buddy to stay, he curled up against Sheri's back and also began to purr.

* * *

**Part 52: Seeking Alistair**

Alistair picked Leliana up and held her gently. Despite the life having gone from her, he couldn't bring himself to be anything but reverent towards her. She had been a true friend, a good friend.

To see her this way tore a part of him away. Some of his youth, some of his optimism was lost that day. As he dug a trench and laid her gently in it, covering it with sand, he buried a part of his joy in life, his once-eternal hope for the future.

He sobbed as sand fell across her lovely face, her eyes now closed and her face peaceful in its repose. It took all of his strength to make that final, irrevocable admittance that she would not wake up. Ever.

He knelt in the sand and sobbed before he gently let that sand drop onto her face—all of the rest of her already hidden. He pushed the mound of sand into the trench, hiding her forever from their view.

He heard Buddy purring beside him. He turned to look at the young griffon. "She's dead, Buddy. She's really dead."

The griffon made a soft crooning sound and rubbed his head against Alistair's sleeve. Alistair wrapped his arms around the griffon, unashamed, and let the tears fall unabated. Sobs broke over him, and he tried with all of his strength to stop them.

But the sorrow won, and so he wept.

Buddy purred and purred, purring so hard and steadily that he began to cough. Alistair sat up, patting him, tears still flowing but no more sobs coming from him. He stood up, with Buddy at his side, and walked to Sheri.

"It's done." He could hear how hollow and lost he sounded. But he couldn't control it. He had no strength left, himself.

Sheri sat up and practically crawled to him. They clung to each other and wept, the griffons lying beside them, their eyes watching as they purred into the late evening, even after Alistair and Sheri had lain down together—no longer able to sit up.

Several hours later, Sheri walked the shore in the moonlight, not able to sleep. She found more items, which she capture and carried up the shore in a desultory and uninterested fashion. She didn't look in the canisters or pouches, no longer interested or caring for their contents.

She dragged wood up, as well, knowing it would be needed later. And, if she were to be honest about it, because she needed to be busy. She needed something to take her mind away from the aching in her soul.

* * *

**Part 53: Seeking Alistair**

They moved crates and boxes slowly up to their upper camp over the next week. They spoke little and their mood was grim. But the griffon eggs continued to hatch, and they became preoccupied with the need to care for so many new kits.

They had gained a quarter barrel of pitch, a great boon because they could now weather-proof their stone hut, and the room they'd made off of it for the griffons to winter in when necessary.

They had also gotten a grooming kit in a water-tight satchel, which included a large whetstone—a greater boon than anything else they had found. And not only because they were finally able to return themselves to a semblance of civility. They were able to sharpen the knife from the camp kit, which had been chipped and grown somewhat dull, despite their best efforts.

They covered the floor and the walls of their little abode with rugs, and still had some left over to create a much softer place to sleep—and they lined the floor of the 'barn' with a single layer of the less attractive ones, as well.

The next winter would be a bit easier for all of them.

Summer passed swiftly, and autumn came. Sheri harvested the 'garden' she had planted with herbs and various roots and tubers she'd found growing around the island. The harvest wasn't huge, but it was decent, and gave them an excellent alternative to the endless precession of meat, fish, seaweed, crab… meat, fish, seaweed, crab… et al.

They didn't speak of Leliana again, though they each knew the other thought often of her. It was there in a distant look, a heavy sigh, a thought-full motion.

Winter was easier that year, in a physical way. But tempers were short and arguments frequent. Food was less scarce, despite so many more mouths to feed. The bond between Buddy and Alistair grew deeper, as with Curbles and Sheri.

All through the short days, Alistair worked on a project he wouldn't discuss with her, and Sheri began to draw pictures on the backs of the hanging rugs with charcoal. Alistair was surprised to find that she had an amazing talent for it.

Spring came, and without telling her what he was doing, Alistair took Buddy down to the South beach and put the harness he'd been working on all Winter on his griffon friend. Not knowing what to expect or what to do, Buddy simply stood there when Alistair climbed on him.

So Alistair, in his infinite wisdom and absolute lack of wits, slapped Buddy hard on the rump.

With a loud squawk of protest, Buddy jumped forward and went tearing down the beach. Running too close to a rock, he slammed Alistair against it and broke his leg as well as splitting the harness in two.

It was more than an hour of agony for him before Sheri finally made it down to the beach at Buddy's insistence to heal him.

Alistair, embarrassed by his failure, refused to explain himself. The rift that had begun to grow between them during the winter months widened into a gulf, and left Alistair uncertain as to how to broach fixing it.


	15. 54 through 56

_Thank you to each of you who have been so awesome as to let me know that I'm doing alright with expressing the life of these characters, and in showing their joys-and sorrows, in a way that touches others as it touches me._

_I appreciate each and every one of you, more than you know. Every review makes me very happy and is tremendously encouraging. So please accept my great thanks for that.  
_

* * *

**Part 54: Seeking Alistair**

It was some weeks later, and Sheri couldn't stop looking at Alistair out of the corner of her eye. He was wearing only his smallclothes, snug around his lean hips. His chest was broad and corded with muscles. One thing she had to give him was that, even here, he kept himself in shape. Very, very good shape.

He was nearly finished tanning some nug leather, while she was grinding some tubers to make a sort of flour out of them. They were both working hard, and she was wearing a man's shirt she'd taken out of the beached chest. It hung off of her, leaving her cool and comfortable.

Alistair, though, had no lighter clothes, so he had taken to simply going nearly naked in the worst of the heat. Sheri found it… distracting.

So today she was watching him. Sweat ran down his body in little rivulets, and the sun gleamed on his broad back. The muscles of his chest worked as his arms flexed and his powerful thighs kept him steady.

She had forgotten what she was doing, so interested had she become in the man in front of her. The stone sat, forgotten, in her hand, and the dried tuber lay in a desultory, abandoned fashion on the lower stone.

He finished tanning the hide and sat back on his heels, looking up at her with a satisfied grin. "All done!"

She'd gotten caught in watching him sweat and work, so that when he looked at her, he caught her totally by surprise. She blinked at him, then felt blood flush heavily into her cheeks.

She smiled and said, "That's great!" She heard the husky, aroused sound in her own voice.

He stood up and walked towards her. She stood up, feeling suddenly awkward and shy.

They stood looking at each other for a moment, and he reached up, sliding his hand across her shoulder and to the nape of her neck. Stepping closer, he rubbed her neck slightly, massaging the sore muscles.

His head lowered and her heart began to pound so hard she thought for a moment that every griffon on the island could hear it—much less Alistair himself. She tried not to be too eager for his kiss… a kiss that didn't come.

His voice flowed into her and through her as he said, in a soft, low voice right beside her ear, "I'm going down to the South beach to clean myself up. Perhaps you'd care for a swim?" His voice was also husky and warm with sexual tension.

It sent molten heat flooding through her, a lightning strike of pure lust. When he stepped back and let his hand fall, his lids were heavy with sensual invitation. There was no doubt at all what she was being invited to the beach for.

* * *

**Part 55: Seeking Alistair**

She watched him walk across the plateau, lowering himself over the edge until he vanished. She felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to fan herself, the heat of her desire increasing the heat of the day.

She thought it strange to be so struck by lust at that moment, as the heat usually enervated her, rather than causing such a surge in her desires. But she decided that she wouldn't fight it. Alistair was all she had, and it was a sort of truce offer that neither of them could afford to ignore.

Sometimes, since he was the only person she ever saw, she almost felt as if she hated him… yet she was even more attached to him than she'd ever been. She told herself it was because he was the only human in the world, but it wasn't that. Even if she'd been surrounded by men, he'd have been her first—and only—choice.

So she gave in to the call of his arms, and climbed down to the beach. She saw his smallclothes, washed and lying across a rock, held down by two other small stones. She dropped her clothes beside the rock and started for the water.

From above, she heard the sound of the griffons, playing in the air. They were diving into the water, waddling out and then shaking, before immediately taking off and doing it again. Their piercing cries split the air and filled the world with life and sound.

Waves greeted her, lapping coolly around her body, caressing her and gliding across heated skin. Alistair turned towards her and smiled. She blushed as cool water swished between her legs and laved against the hot flesh there.

He was, she hoped, too far away to notice. But of course, she knew he could see her breasts, so she dropped into the water until they were covered, and paddled in his direction. When she was close, she saw his hair was wet and he was gleaming brilliantly in the sparkling sun.

She stopped, suddenly afraid. What if she had misunderstood? What if he really meant just bathing, only swimming.

"Would you like to learn how to swim?" he asked her, his voice still throaty and rich with a corresponding passion.

"I…okay." She felt stupid even as she said it.

"You should first learn how to float." He took her hands and pulled her out another step, her feet leaving the ground.

She panicked for a moment, relaxing as he shushed her. Then he turned her body until she was lying on the surface of the water. "Just relax. Don't try to paddle, don't try to keep your head up. Just let the water lift you."

She was super conscious of his chest against her as she gasped and fought her own inner, rising fear. Then she realized that she was naked and floating on the water and he could see… everything.

* * *

**Part 56: Seeking Alistair**

She flipped down into the water, finding herself floating free still. Alistair caught her hand and she drifted against him. The water around their bodies caused her to bump against him repeatedly, and she blushed furious at the feel of his water-slicked body and the jutting iron rod that pressed against her slippery body with every movement of the water.

His lips found hers, and she wrapped both arms around him. The sound of griffons retreated and the world became her and Alistair. He tasted of sea and sun, and his mouth was bold and possessive on hers.

He was nearly knocked off of his feet by a wave, so he moved them in closer to the shore, but pulled her tight against his body so that she was buoyed up against him by every wave that washed around them.

She wrapped her legs around him loosely enough that she could still bump against him with the motion of the water. He groaned and deepened the kiss, his tongue dominating and demanding.

Then she was pulled against him and he was slipping inside of her. She gasped and her head fell back as she was once more filled with Alistair. She was surrounded, and filled, and it was the most erotic experience she had ever had.

His powerful arms lifted and lowered her, water splashing and swirling around them. She clung to him, gasping as he thrust into her and out of her with a ferocious abandon that left her breathless. Their slick bodies slid against each other with no friction at all, and she could only cling to him as he rocked her in the water.

"Alistair!" she cried as she felt her body clench as her orgasm crashed over her harder than the waves around them. Her feet dug into his butt as he growled low and hoarse, his fingers digging into her as he pushed her hard against the place where their bodies were united.

She clung to him, her body still trembling. He carried her out of the water and onto the shore. He lowered her onto the sand, covering her again with his body, now cool from the water and the breeze that whispered over them, caressing and teasing exposed flesh.

He whispered, "I can't get enough of you." Then he pushed inside of her again, dripping water on her shoulder as he nipped her neck, making her gasp and squirm beneath him.

She grabbed his butt, pulling him deeper into her, reveling in the muscles there as they flexed with every thrust into her. He looked at her, leaning up in his arms, his rhythm altering to long, slow thrusts as his eyelids drooped to cover his eyes in a sensual gaze that held hers.

His hips shifted with each long stroke, and he slowly picked up speed as she clung to his arms. Finally, he gave in to his own desire and began to thrust swift and hard. She wrapped around him, her legs tightening of their own accord, her arms trying in vain to pull him closer against her.

When at last he groaned and whispered her name, she felt herself following him beyond the brink. Her orgasm washed over her, her mind driven over the edge of reason and into passion by the knowledge that his orgasm was filling her, that a part of him would remain with her.

When he rolled off of her, she looked over at him, still lying on her back with the sun smiling down on them.

She almost told him she loved him then. She almost said the words again, almost offered up her heart again. But fear stopped her, so the words resounded in her mind, not making it past her lips.

She reached out and ran a hand through his hair, instead. Some part of her hoped to communicate to him what she couldn't bring herself to say.


	16. 57 through 59

**Part 57: Seeking Alistair**

"Were you ever going to let me help with making that harness?"

He jumped when she asked it, and looked at her guiltily. "What harness?" He tried for innocence—badly.

"The one Buddy was wearing when he broke your leg on a rock. The one that, no doubt, Harry the Houseghost made." She looked up at the sky, trying to control the grin that quirked around her lips.

"Hmm, yes, well. I warned Harry about that, but he insists on trying, anyway."

Her grin won, but she still tried to keep it subdued. "Well, perhaps you should inform Harry that the way he has it, the side straps can work their way back to foul Buddy's wings."

"You've got a point, and I think Harry might have already run into that problem. But when he tried putting a strap across the front, it cut off Buddy's breathing."

She tried not to think of the fact that 'Harry' was lying there still naked and her body didn't seem to be finished with him yet, and focused on the issue at hand with difficulty.

"Perhaps Harry should put the chest strap back, and put another strap from the chest, down to the belly, to keep the chest strap from creeping—"

She was cut off as the erstwhile 'Harry' leaped to his feet, showering her with sand. Alistair's face was lit up with discovery and excitement. "By the Maker, you've got it!" he almost yelled.

He rushed back toward the water, and she sat up and watched him go. "Alistair, don't forget—"

But he was out of earshot and scrubbing swiftly to get the sand off. She got up to follow him and he dashed back past, scrambling to put his smallclothes on as he went.

"Alistair, don't—"

He pecked her on the lips, interrupting what she was saying. "Don't worry!" he told her. "I've got this!"

And he ran for the cliff, starting up without so much as taking a breath on the way. He was shimmying up and away before she could even get the sand off of her to put her clothes back on.

Sighing, she washed the tunic she'd been wearing, tied it around her waist and put on her smalls. Then she followed him up the cliff.

By the time she got up there, Alistair had Buddy tricked out in his harness. This time, though, there was no sneaking around with it, as he displayed it proudly to her.

"Well, what do you think?" he asked, positively glowing.

She winced to see the eagerness in his face. She had to be honest with him, though. "Well, it's a great start," she told him, trying to bring in the positive first.

"A start? It's awesome!" he argued. "Just look at it!"

"Yes, well. I just have one question, Alistair."

"Anything. Ask me anything," he said, still obviously proud of his work.

"How are you going to get it off of him?"

"Well, I'll just…" He turned to look at it. "I'll just… It'll come off over…" He huffed for a moment. "I don't know." He was scowling now. "Pull it off over his head?"

"Against the grow pattern of his feathers? I'm not sure he'll stand for that." She was dubious about the whole issue, but the idea that Buddy would let Alistair ruffle his feathers backwards to take that harness off was definitely unlikely.

"This was your bright idea, anyway!" Alistair complained.

"Actually, Alistair, my idea was to make it in such a way that you could undo the chest strap each time. But you ran off without listening to me." She crossed her arms and glared at him.

"I was excited!"

She raised an eyebrow. "Before or after the harness conversation?"

He grinned boyishly at her, hugging her. "Both?"

"Good answer!" She pulled him down for a kiss. Then, releasing him, she stepped back. "You can fix that no problem, Alistair. I have faith in you."

"You do?" He looked insecure and uncertain. "I thought you were totally against the idea of trying to fly on the griffons."

"No, Alistair. I'm against the idea of trying to fly them to the mainland, since we don't know how far it is. I'm not against you riding them entirely." She patted him on the cheek and then waved him toward Buddy. "You'll have to fix it quickly, though. I don't think he'll let you pull it off over his head."

* * *

**Part 58: Seeking Alistair**

Alistair continued to work on the harness, until he finally felt he'd gotten it somewhat right. But as soon as he climbed onto Buddy again, one of the "buckles" he'd made out of leather broke. Wandering past, Sheri 'mentioned' that perhaps he should make the joins out of rope, rather than leather, since it was stronger.

Alistair went to get the rope, but then stopped to ask her, "Anything else I should think of before I try this?"

So she mentioned that he could tie the rope, and then cover it in leather. He should then wet the leather and make it harden around the knot for extra reinforcement.

Oh, and by the way, had he already waterproofed the leather on the rest of the harness? No, he hadn't, but it wasn't important. He didn't intend to ride in the rain, after all. How silly of her!

Two weeks later, he had to replace the belly strap when Buddy decided to go swimming in it. He grumbled and growled and Sheri simply grinned and went about her business. He fixed it, waterproofed the rest of it by smoking it, and then grabbed her with a mock growl and made love to her right where they were.

"You know," he said when they were done. "It's a good thing that we're on a deserted island."

"Really? Why's that?"

"Because this bad habit you have of just jumping on me and raping me right out in the middle of the camp would be positively shameful in proper society."

"What? Me?" She looked over at him and found him smirking from ear to ear. She punched him lightly on the shoulder and got up to pour the small pan of water over him.

With a yelp he scrambled to his feet. Buddy charged into the camp, squawking with alarm and concern. He mantled at Sheri, his hackles rising as he sought to protect his master.

When Sheri just kept laughing, he finally laid down at Alistair's feet, tongue lolling out of his beak.

"Good boy," Alistair said with a laugh, patting his griffon friend.

But Curbles as not to be outdone, and raced into the camp, too, hissing at Buddy. Buddy, unruffled by her threats, rolled over on his back and wriggled, purring. She hissed at him again, then turned in an obvious huff and stalked out of the camp.

Buddy followed her, chirping and crooning. She continued to ignore him, walking over to lounge on a rock in the sun. Buddy mantled, jumping back and forth, as if trying to get her attention. When that failed, he began to chase his tail, squawking and chirping.

Finally, still not getting the interest he was looking for, he pounced straight up into the air, wings tucked in and back arched. He landed right on top of her, bowling her off of the rock as their human friends watched and laughed at his antics.

Spitting and hissing, Curbles squirmed out from under him. He bounced around her, dodging at her and then jumping back when she went for him, her beak snapping. Within moments, they were tearing across the plateau, Buddy running all out with Curbles on his heels, beak snapping.

A few hours later, they returned, Buddy looking decidedly pleased and Curbles curling up with a self-satisfied air on her favorite stone, outlined in crimson and orange as the sun set.

* * *

**Part 59: Seeking Alistair**

Fall came to Jewel Island with a gentle whimper. Leaves changed and griffons began to grow thicker fur. Nug became less common as they retreated to their deeper burrows. Birdsong grew scarce and frost often rimed their home in the mornings.

Winter set in with a vengeance, though, the first snowstorm dropping several feet of snow, covering the icy pond and coating the trees in thick ice. Sunrise came and turned it all to pink and gold, muting the sounds around them and leaving only the tinkling of ice in the breeze.

Breath puffing pink, orange, and gold in the morning air, Alistair and Sheri dug out their fire pit and common area, laughing and playing for the first little while. Then there was only the sound of their labors as they dug through to the ground and finally got the outdoor fire going. They had brought the wood into the griffon shelter, and were glad for it.

Winter was harsh that year, with three of the younger griffons wandering off to die in the freezing temperatures. The griffon barn was packed, and Alistair commented often that they would need a larger one for the next year.

Arguments between them increased in frequency, but this time, they managed to come back together after them more often than not.

Spring came and Curbles and Buddy had their first nest together. Sheri was as proud of them as if they were her own children, and Alistair grinned and smacked Buddy on the rump.

"Way to go, pal!"

Buddy griffon-grinned at him, and Sheri rolled her eyes.

The three eggs hatched, and they named the male Harry. The two females became Curi and Yuss… over Sheri's stringent objections, she not finding the pun at all amusing, and Alistair demanding that she come up with something better if she wanted to change them.

Whereupon she made several attempts but was ignored entirely by the pair, while they continued to answer to Curi and Yuss. Sighing, Sheri admitted defeat and called them thus.

Summer was hot, but calm. When Fall came again, though, furious winds battered the Island.

"It's cold already," Sheri told Alistair one day, holding her patchwork nug-leather cloak close against her.

He took her inside their stone shelter with its expanded griffon barn and warmed her up in the best possible way.

The winter was cold and sharp, and food was scarce, despite their efforts to build up a supply over the summer. The griffons were on edge, seeming to pick up on the growing disharmony between their human companions.

The sun was distant and cold, the temperatures dangerously low as a cold wind sheered across the island. Sheri and Alistair were arguing again about food as it grew more and more scarce, divided between humans and griffons.

The griffons had been hunting frequently, but not finding enough to keep themselves and their kits fed. Snow had built up so high on one side of the shelter that Alistair and Sheri were forced to leave via the griffon barn, often having to crawl over protesting bodies to do so.

The winds raged, howling through the night, keeping Sheri awake for long hours into the night. More and more often, she became fearful, and Alistair grew impatient with her nearly climbing over him as she had increasing Darkspawn dreams.

But inevitably, as it always does, Spring came at last, and Sheri and Alistair were able to get some distance from each other.

Everything came to a head, though, when Sheri had another Darkspawn dream, the third in the same night, and Alistair yelled at her.


	17. 60 through 62

**Part 60: Seeking Alistair**

She slept the next night in the griffon barn, Curbles and her kits snuggled up around her. Alistair yelled at her in the morning for leaving him alone. She simply turned and walked away from him, no expression on her face at all.

He saw her later, crying into Curbles' neck, Buddy lying beside her on his back, purring and pawing gently at her with one foot.

Later, he tried to make it up to her, coming up to her and apologizing. She screamed at him, "I hate you, Alistair! I HATE YOU!"

"What? What did I do?" he objected. This new, angry Sheri was something he didn't know how to deal with.

"It's not my fault I'm having Darkspawn dreams, Alistair! It's not too much to ask that you not make me suffer for it!"

"Well, why do I have to suffer for it? It's not my fault, either!"

"You know what, Alistair? Never mind. Never mind! Curbles doesn't have a problem with me waking her up at night!" She stomped off, literally sticking her fingers in her ears as he shouted after her. "La la la, I can't HEAR you!"

"What the fade? What is WRONG with you?" he yelled after she had gone into the barn.

"I HATE YOU!" she shrieked back.

"Maker," Alistair said to Buddy. "You'd think I kicked a kit or something, damn."

Buddy purred and nudged him.

That night, in the middle of the night, Alistair woke up to Sheri's body pressed against him.

"I thought you hated me," he grumbled at her.

"I did," she said. "But I don't."

Her body was undulating against his, her arousal as potent as a griffon in heat. Disgruntled, he thought to push her away. Then, he decided that, if she was going to offer it up, it had been several weeks and he wasn't going to refuse—even if he was pissed.

So he rolled over on top of her, and found her wet and willing and oh-so hot. She was so hot, in fact, that he feared a fever might be upon her again. But he was too horny at the moment to consider it further.

Especially since she arched against him and panted and begged. And he could barely keep himself in check, her lust was so obvious and ardent. He took his pleasure with no need whatsoever to focus on hers, as she seemed to find every motion of his body to be excessively erotic.

When he collapsed on top of her, sweating and exhausted, she kissed his neck as if she hadn't seen him in years. He groaned, but grinned.

"I'm sorry," she told him softly.

He kissed her and rolled over, pulling her against him. Sleep claimed them both quickly, interrupted by her screams as dawn broke the horizon. This time, he wasn't irritated, he held her as she trembled and shook with residual fear.

* * *

**Part 61: Seeking Alistair**

She was crying so hard she couldn't talk. Alistair stood there, a deepening worry spreading through him. She still felt feverish to him. And she continued to complain of being hot. She was lethargic and the dreams continued to intensify.

Now, it was early in the morning. So early that the sun wouldn't come up for hours, and they were sitting in the barn because she had yelled at him and moved out again. She was sobbing brokenly, repeating that Leliana was dead, and Alistair shouldn't ever fly on Buddy, ever, ever, ever and if he didn't promise her RIGHT NOW, she would never forgive him.

He sighed. When he told her she was being unreasonable and it was just a dream she jumped up and started screaming at him that he was going to kill Buddy and she would never forgive him.

She hated him… again.

He sat on the cliff, watching the reflection of the moon on the waves far below—all he could see of the world beneath them. Buddy laid beside him and purred.

"I would never kill you," he told his griffon friend. Buddy just purred louder. "How could she accuse me of that?"

Buddy didn't answer, only lifted his head to listen, cocking it back and forth as Alistair ranted about the unfair accusation.

Then Alistair sighed. "I think she's sick, Buddy. But I don't dare tell her so in the mood she's in. The mood she's been in, rather."

They argued for another month, until full summer was upon them. Then as abruptly as they began, the Darkspawn dreams ceased. Life began to be normal again, though Sheri and Alistair still rarely spoke. The late night visits to his bed ended, though, and Alistair missed them…

The summerlike heat increased, and Sheri began to complain about it. Alistair grew short tempered, finally demanding that she tell him exactly what she thought he should do about it. Offended, she went down to the North shore, only to send a griffon with a scrawled note, written in charcoal… more debris had washed ashore.

Alistair climbed down to see what they'd gotten. This time it was a veritable bounty. There were dried oranges in a sealed barrel, potatoes in another, and several crates of various other food goods.

To his surprise, he found she had already opened the dried, candied oranges and was eating them like a starving person.

Still irritated with her, he said, "Leave some of those for me, won't you?"

She gave him a dirty look. "It's a huge barrel, Alistair. We probably won't be able to eat them all for several years."

"The way you've been eating lately, I give it a month." It was out before he could stop it.

Her eyes narrowed. "What are you trying to say, Alistair?"

"Nothing. I'm not trying to say anything. Forget it."

"No. You brought this up, so now you say it. Be honest for a change. Tell me what you really feel." She stood with hands on her hips now, glaring at him with open challenge.

"You're eating more than your fair share, that's all," he said meekly, trying to find a way to get out of it without lying. "It's no big deal, really."

"No big deal? No big deal? If it was no big deal, you wouldn't be snarking at me about it!"

"I'm just tired, okay? It's hot and I'm too hot, and I was worried about what we might find down here, okay?"

She melted immediately, deflating in an alarming fashion. She started crying and he sighed.

"Sheri, shhh, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have—"

"No, you're right. You're right. I was so happy to find some different food that I forgot…" she broke off as she was overwhelmed by sobs.

He held her shaking body and felt lost and confused. She had become a total stranger since the onset of the increased Darkspawn dreams. He didn't know what to do, so he stood patting her awkwardly and sighed.

* * *

**Part 62: Seeking Alistair**

"It's hardly my fault you're acting like this!" Alistair yelled. "You have turned into the biggest bitch I've ever known!"

She gasped and turned away. "Forget it, Alistair. If that's how you feel about it, you just eat it all. I don't care."

"Oh, come on! That's not fair. We need to ration it, winter is coming and we didn't have enough last winter. It's not like you're hurting for food, Sheri."

She whirled on him, her face a mask of fury. He recoiled, even taking a step back.

"What. Are. You. Saying?" she enunciated each word, pausing for effect.

He threw his hands up. "I'm just saying there's plenty of food even with us putting some away for winter!"

"You're calling me fat!"

He gasped, "I am NOT! I never said that!"

"Well, I'm not fat, Alistair!"

"I KNOW you're not fat! I never said you were! You just read that in to what I was really saying!" He wracked his mind, trying to figure out when and how the conversation had gone so horribly wrong.

"Forget it, I'm going to work with Buddy some more."

Her voice rose to a shriek so loud that he clapped his hands over his ears, "You are NOT riding that griffon! You promised!"

"I did not!" he yelled back. "You demanded it, but I never promised! I'm not going to stop riding because you had a stupid dream!"

"A stupid dream, was it? A STUPID dream?"

Now, he actually feared for his life, she was glowing with gathering magic, and he took several steps back.

"Well, not stupid. Just, only a dream." He raised his hands to fend off the lightning he was afraid would strike him any second.

"Don't you fly on him, Alistair. Promise me, or I'll never speak to you again."

He crossed his arms. "No way. I love it, and he loves it. And you'd be flying on Curbles, too, if you weren't so stubborn. I made you a harness and everything."

"I can't fly right now, Alistair."

"Or ever, it would seem," he told her. "I've even trained her for you, you know."

"I can't fly!" she yelled at him.

He threw up his hands and turned to walk away.

"Please, Alistair. Please! Swear to me that you won't fly on him!"

His heart melted at the fear in her voice. "Sheri, I can't do that." He turned and held her. "I just can't. Nothing is going to happen. It was just a Darkspawn dream. It's not going to really happen in real life."

She sobbed against his chest. "Yes it is, Alistair. I know it!"


	18. 63 through 65

_Going to the store, so there will be some time before next update, I'm afraid... I'll try not to keep you in suspense for toooo long, though..._

* * *

**Part 63: Seeking Alistair**

Fall finally gave in and grew cold, the first biting promise of winter in the air. But that wasn't the only biting happening on Jewel Island.

Alistair was once again facing down a snarling, angry Sheri. He was taking daily flights, and they were arguing yet again about it. He had lost all patience with her nonstop assertions that he was going to kill Buddy by flying on him, and that he and Buddy were going to fall into the water and die.

He had agreed not to fly over the water, but it had led only to a day's reprieve before she harped at him again.

"Why are you constantly on my case? Because of some dream? Come on, Sheri, be reasonable!" He grabbed the orange slices out of her hand. "And for the love of the Maker, Sheri, stop eating so much! We'll have nothing left for winter and it's almost here!"

"Nothing left? We have more than we've ever had, Alistair! You're not being fair!"

She grabbed for the oranges and he pulled them further out of her reach. "Damn it, Alistair, I'm starving, give them back!"

He started laughing. "You're hardly starving! Just look at you!" Then he realized what he'd said and clamped his mouth shut. Too late.

Her hands went to her hips and she glared at him, fury written in every line of her body. "Really, Alistair? Just look at me? Look how fat I've gotten?"

"I didn't say that! You could survive a little rationing, that's all, you're not looking bony or anything."

She grabbed the oranges out of his hand. "I'm not fat, Alistair, I'm pregnant. And it IS your fault! And I'll eat all the oranges I damned well please!" She stuffed two of the candied slices in her mouth and bit down on them with a final and obvious statement.

"You what? When? How? What?" He felt like he'd been hit with a brick. He struggled with the feelings that rose in him.

"Gee, I dunno, Alistair, how do you think?"

He didn't even notice. He was overcome with a feeling so intense, so immense, that he could barely speak. He dropped to his knees in front of her, laying his face against her slightly mounded belly. How had he not realized?

He felt tears come, and he just let them fall. He was going to be a father. He was going to have a family—a real family.

He had long ago given it up. And they'd been together now for years, with nothing…

"Why didn't you tell me?" he choked out.

"I wasn't sure for a while. And then I wasn't sure if it would… if it would stay."

"I'm going to be a father," he said, his voice sounding strangled and hoarse even to his own ears. "We're going to have a family of our own."

The thought rocked through him, and he felt that the world had begun to rock beneath him, the island shuddering and rolling as everything changed. He was to be a father. He imagined a little girl with his eyes and Sheri's nose.

Sitting back on his heels, tears still running down his face, he realized that this had been his secret dream for his entire life. To see himself in someone else. To see someone who looked like him, or talked like him, or even who liked something that he did.

"I can't believe it. I just can't believe it." He looked up at her, her eyes full of tears also.

"I didn't think it was possible," she told him. "Riordan said it doesn't happen… that it's rare in the extreme for one warden with a normal partner to have a child. I thought… it couldn't be, I thought I was crazy, I thought it was wishful thinking."

He kissed her belly, trying to make his love and welcome sink through right into the child that nestled there.

He couldn't stop smiling. He couldn't stop the tears of hope and joy from his eyes, either. To have a family, to have someone to love, someone to teach, someone who looked like him and was related to him, was more than he'd ever dared hope for.

He loved Sheri, and he had loved Duncan. His love for them was no less now. But there was a difference in the feeling that came over him when he thought of a child of his own. And, of course, he was quick to correct himself, Sheri's.

* * *

**Part 64: Seeking Alistair**

To Alistair's continued frustration, Sheri continued to insist on him not flying over the water. She also continued to try to get him to stop riding the griffons at all, but he wanted to keep them trained and in shape.

He even started making plans, much to her mingled chagrin and amusement, for which was to be their child's mount. He also began to make baby's blankets and various objects out of the nug leathers, which were once more dwindling.

Then, winter was there, and Sheri's belly continued to grow. Alistair insisted on spending time every evening telling her stomach stories, which she bore with stoic patience. He never missed a day, even when the nights were at their shortest and the days their coldest.

But winter could not hold on forever, and so spring broke over the Island, and Sheri was now so large that she complained that her belly led the way to everything she did.

But she was still some time away from birth, though time there was difficult to track. She began to complain of increasing pain. She grew lethargic and barely responded when he spoke to her.

The griffons constantly fluttered around her, a fact that unnerved Alistair for some reason he couldn't place. He woke each morning immediately seeking her out and reassuring himself that she was breathing. Every day it got harder to wake her, and on the third morning, he found blood on her robe.

Pushing it up, ignoring her feeble objection, he was horrified to find her legs covered in blood.

"Hurts," she murmured to him.

"Can you Heal it?" he asked desperately. "Sheri?" he shook her slightly, and her eyes opened, weakly, drearily.

"Not enough energy, Alistair. Tired. Hurting. Just a bit of sleep." She sounded far away, as if she had left him already.

"Sheri? Sheri! Tell me what to do! I don't know what to do!" desperate terror seized him as he knelt over her, clinging to her.

"Midwife might know. Bleeding. Too much bleeding. Baby coming soon, but I… I don't think I'll make it, Alistair."

"No. No, no, no." He denied it. He refused it. He rejected it.

He went out and found some of the healing poultices she'd made. He brought them in and pressed them between her legs.

"Won't help, love. Won't help. Bleeding's inside me. Don't think I'll make it." Her eyes were glassy, distant. Her voice was breathy, and she stared at the ceiling as if she saw something there.

"No. No, no, no!" he cursed and ran out of their shelter.

He looked for potions, anything that might help. But she rejected all of it. He finally had to accept that they had nothing that would help. The knowledge drove a brutal stake into his heart.

He was losing them both, and his soul with them.

* * *

**Part 65: Seeking Alistair**

He couldn't control the abject terror that seized him. It gripped him like an iron fist, brutally closing over his heart and shutting down all rational thought. His mind gibbered, coming up with solution after solution, each more ludicrous than the last.

But the final thought came down to one thing, and one thing only. He needed help. He needed a midwife or a healer. And he knew where to find one, but not how to get there.

He turned and looked at Buddy. The griffon lay curled up in the sun, his feathers ruffling slightly in the breeze. Pain gripped at Alistair's heart anew.

'Promise me you'll never ride him across the water, Alistair. You'll kill him, and yourself, too! I saw you die over and over in my dream, and I couldn't save you!' Her words were burned into his mind.

But better to die than watch as she and their child died. Better to take the risk, than to bury the only good things in the whole world. Tears poured down his face as he tried to whistle for Buddy.

Better to die than to do nothing.

"Come here, boy," he finally managed around the aching knot in his throat. He strapped the harness onto the griffon and turned his head so that they were face-to-face. "We're going to fly further than we've ever flown before. We might not make it," he told the griffon. "We're going to try to save Sheri and my baby. I'm sorry to do this to you. But we have to try!" The last sentence came out as an agonized cry.

Buddy purred and then turned to his mate. He walked over and nuzzled her, crooning softly. It was, to Alistair's way of thinking, as if he really understood what he'd just been told. The pair preened each other affectionately for a moment, then the now fully mature male returned to Alistair.

He shook his head and then gave a piercing, high call of challenge. Alistair hopped aboard him, and looked back at the stone sheltering his beloved and his child. "I'll be back, Sheri," he said softly. "I swear it before you and the Maker. I'll return and I'll save you both."

But he wasn't sure. He refused to acknowledge the part of him that screamed that he shouldn't leave her there alone and bleeding and dying. She would die without him, alone and afraid.

He choked on the sorrow he couldn't quite hold off and tapped Buddy. The great beast ran across the plateau, then rose into the air and Jewel Island dropped away. They were on their way, traveling north. Alistair's terror and despair grew with each beat of the mighty wings of his mount—his friend.


	19. 66 through 68

_LOL, believe it or not, that cliffy ended up standing longer than intended. I got my car stuck in the mud while I was out. But the wait is over!_

_Thanks a ton to those of you who read and review faithfully. I truly appreciate every comment, and your feedback is absolutely awesome. It's so very encouraging to know when I'm managing to bring in the emotions that I hope to evoke in the reader. I get to watch these characters live their lives in my mind, and weep when they suffer and laugh when they play... knowing that I'm communicating that well enough that the characters 'live' again in the readers' minds is the greatest compliment I can get._

_So thank you, so much._

* * *

**Part 66: Seeking Alistair**

They flew North, and Alistair kept telling Buddy over and over, "Pace yourself, pace yourself. Don't use all of your energy too soon."

But with every beat, his heart cried, hurry-hurry…hurry-hurry… hurry-hurry…

The beating of Buddy's wings seemed to say, over and over, too-slow, swish… too-slow, swish…too-slow, swish…

Even the sun, bearing down upon them from above, seemed to be pushing them relentlessly onwards. Each time that they passed over a large stone, or nearby one, Alistair stopped the equally impatient Buddy and made him rest. It was a bit like a game of children's don't-touch-the-ground, except far more urgent.

Then, when Buddy's breathing had returned to normal, he would mount again, and they would set off again. He clung desperately to the griffon, his hands tangled in the leather harness as he sought to stay on. He'd never ridden for so long, and he felt fearful as he hadn't ever before.

But they pushed onwards, Buddy's wings singing their song with infinite repetition. But eventually, the inevitable happened, and they ran out of stones to rest on. It was straight, nonstop flight from there, and Alistair was clutched in the grasp of a growing terror. Even as high as they were, he could see nothing in the distance but water, water, and yet more water.

Buddy flew without complaint, and Alistair could feel the encroaching of the hours. He had never imagined that his friend could fly for so very, very long. But he did. He flew and flew, his wings an endless litany against the silence surrounding them.

Out here, there wasn't even a sound of waves, only the wind of flight, the flapping of wings, and the roar of his frightened heart.

Alistair could feel the weariness in his own body as he clung to Buddy. So he began to talk to him. He told him what they were going to name the baby. He told him all of his heart's darkest dreams and fears—about everything except this journey.

But as hour stacked upon hour, he fell silent. Darkness fell without fanfare, and Alistair caught himself actually dozing off. Jerked back to wakefulness by his fear that he would fall, he fought to keep himself away, to fight the insidious creep of exhaustion and fatigue.

Buddy trembled beneath him, and Alistair felt dawning despair. Buddy's indomitable spirit was flagging. He was dipping lower and lower in the sky as he flew, his muscles trembling with a fatigue so complete that it was all he could do to take yet one more swipe at the air with his mighty wings.

Alistair could only cling helplessly as he felt Buddy's chest heaving, great lungs gasping for one more draught of life-giving air. The silence was the more terrible because all that broke it was the heaving of Buddy's wings, the rasping sigh of his desperate breathing, and the grunts that began to fall as he drove himself just a bit further. Just a bit, just one more beat… and another.

Morning came, cold and watery, as if even the sun was reluctant to face the truth. Buddy was dipped so near the water now that Alistair feared he would snarl a paw in it. He tapped the griffon upward, and Buddy grunted and climbed a foot or two before leveling out to flap roughly, his breathing labored and coming hard.

For the first few times, Buddy climbed each time Alistair asked it of him. But on the fourth time, he didn't even seem to notice. He had passed so far into exhaustion that he was no longer grunting. He pushed onwards, every ounce of strength and fortitude given to simply beating his wings.

Alistair's despair grew in direct proportion to Buddy's weariness. Finally, what he had feared happened, and one of Buddy's paws struck water. But Buddy pulled up, his breath hitching, his rhythm faltering only an instant. He rose, as if finding a second wind, and leveled out slightly, some ten feet or so above the water.

* * *

**Part 67: Seeking Alistair**

But Alistair knew. He knew that Buddy wasn't going to make it. There was no land ahead of them. There was nothing for miles. Not land, not a ship, nothing.

There was only the faltering beat of Buddy's wings, the rasping hoarseness of his breath, and the thundering of Alistair's terrified heart. They dipped lower, and lower, and lower again, until they were inches from the water again.

In the end, Buddy still tried to fly. His great heart, taxed beyond its limit, simply gave up. It could give no more. Buddy fell into the water, landing hard and throwing Alistair. He gave a single, terrified cry, looked at his friend with pain reflected in his eyes, and sank beneath the waves.

Alistair cried, feeling as if his soul was being ripped out. He dove, but Buddy's body was too far away already for him to reach it. He surfaced and wept inconsolably. He sought the sun and found his bearings, turning North again.

He could do nothing but continue on. Buddy would never comfort him again. He would never play fetch again.

Alistair fought the rage and sorrow that burned in him. 'You'll kill him' rang over and over in his mind as he swam on. Now, there was no flapping of wings. No. There would be no more flapping of wings for Alistair.

He had betrayed his love, and his griffon. He couldn't make it. He was lost. All was lost.

He cursed himself for a fool and swam on. With every stroke of his arms, he felt the loss more keenly. Salty tears mingled with the salt water on his face, but he didn't care—didn't even notice.

Buddy was gone.

Alistair had failed.

When he could push on no more, he pushed himself a bit further, and then further, and then further. If Buddy could do it, so would he. In his despair, his regret, his heartbreak, he nearly let himself sink below the waves, to find his own watery grave, beyond which he wouldn't have to know or remember that he had failed everyone he loved.

But he couldn't quite do it. So he floated until his breathing eased, and then he swam again. Towards what, he didn't know. But he swam North, getting his bearing from the Sun until darkness fell.

Then he laid on his back and floated again, too weary to go on.

He cried again, his heart longing for yesterday. Longing to take it all back, undo everything. To have his friend back, to lie beside Sheri.

He should have found another way.

* * *

**Part 68: Seeking Alistair**

He was dreaming.

"Wake up, boy."

Something poked him hard in the side. Pain blossomed in his heart and screamed through protesting, agonized muscles at the same time. He yelled as he was struck a hammer's blow by both in the same instance. The double assault of emotional pain and physical pain left him gulping for air.

"What's wrong with you?" The voice stirred some ancient memory in him, but the pain blotted it out.

"Sheri… dying… must get to mainland." It was all he could say, gasping for breath and puking on the sand.

"Try to make sense, Warden."

He vomited again. Then, panting, he laid in the darkness and spoke to the disembodied voice in his dream. He told her about the shipwreck, and then about the baby. Then he told her that he'd let Buddy die.

It was some time before he could explain that he'd ridden his griffon across the sea.

"You're a stupid fool, boy."

He didn't argue. It was nicer than what he thought of himself.

"Why would you go and do a stupid thing like that?"

He rolled over and looked at the sky. There were no stars. Of course not. He was dead and there were no stars in the Fade. "Sheri's dying. She's pregnant and she's bleeding. She's barely able to hold her head up, she's so weak and tired. I thought I'd save her. But I failed. She knew I'd fail. She dreamed it, you know."

"And who's your buddy that you took across the sea and killed?"

"My griffon, of course." Why was a Fade spirit asking such a stupid, obvious question.

"Well, well, well, they're not extinct, after all, eh?"

"Nah." Alistair groaned as pain wracked him again, his muscles seizing up in a convulsion. Panting, he groaned, "Being dead sucks."

There was laughter, familiar in some way he couldn't place. "You're not dead, boy. You just wish you were dead."

"You're not kidding," he told the familiar, invisible person.

"Where is this Island, boy?"

"South," he told her dreamily, drifting on a sea of pain.

"Where 'south'? Be more specific."

"Due south," he growled. "I just went straight North. I don't even know where I am, much less where it is."

Then, he was given something to drink, and he drank it without comment or argument. He couldn't see the person in the gloom, but knew that if she meant him dead, he was as helpless as a kitten—she wouldn't need to drug him.

But then, moments before sleep claimed him, he saw… he saw a dragon's claw descend on him. His mind wailed in horror as he was forced to acknowledge that all was lost. He had failed and he had found out he was alive, only to die again.

A moment later, he was clutched in a powerful draconic fist. The dragon picked up a satchel that lay beside him in the other claw. Wings mightier by far than Buddy's lifted Alistair and set off across the sea.

Flemeth hoped the sleeping draught would keep him asleep long enough for her to reach the Island, she didn't want to deal with him waking up and trying to fight her mid-flight.


	20. 69 through 71

**Part 69: Seeking Alistair**

Sheri was floating in vast silence. Water waved below her, and the sun beat down on her. There was nothing else besides the silence, the water, the sky, and sun. For long moments, she hung suspended, until she saw a small speck in the distance.

She knew immediately what—who—it was.

"Alistair, no!" she cried out in despair. Her heart became leaden and she could only hang in the silent brilliance as he drew nearer.

Every line of his body showed exhaustion as he gripped Buddy. His precious, beloved face was a mask of fear and desperation. It was more than she could bear and she sought to cry out.

It was The Dream. Again.

Buddy dipped lower and lower. He struggled to gain altitude, his breath rasping from a raw throat.

Then he faltered and anguish screamed through her. "No!" she screamed within the confines of her mind.

The pair crashed into the water with an impact so powerful that Alistair was torn from the harness and bounced across the water. She watched in horror and terror as Buddy sank beneath the waves. Then Alistair followed, reaching out to him…

And then they were gone, and she was looking at stone as her eyes flew open.

"ALISTAIR!" she screamed. The baby leaped in her womb, and she sobbed. "AL-IS-TAIR!" She wept, denying the truth.

He couldn't hear her.

He would never come.

Buddy was lost. Alistair was lost.

Their child kicked, as if in protest of the terrible loss. She was overcome with grief, and could only curl her hands around her belly. Beside her, she felt purring erupt.

Curbles looked into her eyes, and Sheri saw grief and loss there, as surely as if she looked into the eyes of a sentient being.

"They're gone, Curbles," she sobbed to the griffon.

Curbles laid her head down and watched Sheri with eyes filled with infinite sorrow.

"It was real, wasn't it?" Sheri asked redundantly. "They flew away and they never made it." The baby kicked again, and Sheri felt wetness between her legs. It was too soon. "He'll never see our baby," she told the purring, but otherwise silent griffon.

"Oh, Alistair," she sobbed as she slowly sat up. "I need you!" She screamed it impotently at the uncaring roof of the shelter.

Slowly, with great exhaustion and pain, she got up and waddled out the doorway to the water's edge. She filled the bucket and sat back, cleaning the blood off to the best of her ability.

She turned to go back inside, but it seemed so far. So very far. So she laid down—just for a minute.

When she woke again, it was raining. She slowly stood, gripping Curbles as dizziness overwhelmed her. Moving slowly, every step a laborious chore, she managed to get back into the shelter, where she shivered and cried until sleep overtook her.

* * *

**Part 70: Seeking Alistair**

She swam through consciousness, trying to keep herself clean and eating when she could force herself to do it. But everything she did was difficult, and she wept often. But she felt the baby still moving, and she clung to that with all her strength.

"Wake up and drink, girl."

She opened her eyes, so heavy… so very heavy. "Flemeth?" She stared at the face that hovered over hers. "Is this a dream?"

"No, girl. I'm no dream. Drink this."

Sheri drank obediently. "That's vile!" she objected, though not very strenuously. Certainly not as strenuously as she felt the revulsion for the nasty concoction. She turned away until Flemeth offered her water. That, she drank carefully and gratefully.

"How did you get here? What are you doing here? Are you sure I'm not dreaming?"

"You're going to be fine now. I've stopped the bleeding. You're anemic, so you're going to be tired until the bairn is born. You lost so much blood that you'll be low on iron until after the birth."

"You never give anyone a straight answer, do you?"

"It's part of my charm, girl." Flemeth handed her a handful of vials. "If you bleed again, you'll drink this."

"You're leaving?" She felt alarm run through her as she thought of being left totally alone on the island with a baby on the way.

"You'll be just fine, Warden. Women have been birthing babies longer than men have been keeping histories. Most of them alone, so be glad your man is here to help you."

Sheri sobbed. "He's dead. I watched him die."

"Are you sure? Could you be wrong?"

A contraction tore through Sheri then. She suddenly realized what it was—and that it wasn't the first. "Contractions. I'm having contractions!"

"Why didn't you say so sooner?" Flemeth admonished her.

"What am I going to do?"

"You're going to have a baby, obviously."

"But it's too soon! I can't have the baby now! I'm not ready! The baby's not done!"

"You'll be fine. The baby will be fine. It's early, but not too early."

"How do you know?" Sheri knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn't help the aggravation that struck her, especially as it was accompanied by another harsh, rippling contraction.

"The Chasind were terrified of me. But not so terrified that they weren't willing to come get me every time something went wrong. I know about birth, girl."

It was some fourteen hours later before Flemeth handed the tiny, squaling baby to Sheri. Sheri sobbed as she held him. "Hello, Adrian," she murmured softly to him.

She didn't even notice when Flemeth left.

* * *

**Part 71: Seeking Alistair**

"Come on, boy, wake up."

Alistair batted the hand away from his shoulder. "Leave me alone."

"Get up, boy, your other Warden needs you."

Alistair groaned as stabbing agony sheered through his head as if a boulder had landed on it.

"Here, drink this."

When he had finished gasping, he drank the offered potion, only to cough and choke. "Are you trying to kill me? What IS that?" He gagged as his stomach rebelled at the taste.

"Stop whining and go in to see your babe," Flemeth told him. "Even through you're an idiot, you're the only father he's got."

"What?" Alistair tried to get his mind around the mercurial change in conversation.

Flemeth spoke slowly, enunciating as if speaking to a particularly dense person. "Sheri had a boy. You should go see them."

He struggled to sit up, his body aching in places he hadn't even known existed. Slowly as he worked his way up to his knees, Flemeth talked to him.

"You have plenty of trees here, boy. You should make a large raft. Have the griffons fly in shifts. Put a rudder and a sail on it, and you should be able to go right over the tops of those rocks."

He grunted and staggered to his feet. "I have a son," he told her, his mind preoccupied as the reality of that fact tried to sink into his wandering, pained brain.

"Yeah." She turned away and rummaged in her pack while he slowly staggered to the doorway of the shelter.

"Sheri?"

As Alistair disappeared inside, Flemeth turned and shifted, throwing her bulk up into the air, ignoring the hissing and agitated squawking of the griffons. She winged away back the way she had come, leaving the new family to meet and greet one another.

Inside the shelter, Alistair and Sheri stared at each other in equal shock.

"A son?" Alistair asked her.

"Alistair?" She said his name with such surprise and reverence that he stopped and stared at her, his eyes actually leaving the tiny bundle at her breast for the first time. "I saw you die. I saw Buddy crash into the water and I saw both of you go under…"

Alistair dropped roughly to the floor and crawled to his beloved and his baby. "We fell, yes. But I survived. I don't know how. Then Flemeth found me…"

He laid down beside her. She handed him the small bundle, and he cried as he took the tiny baby from her arms.

"He's so small!" Alistair felt joy and terror seize him. "What if I hurt him?"

"He couldn't wait to meet his daddy," Sheri told him.

He looked up to find tears in her eyes as she looked at him. He smiled.

"Couldn't wait to see how pretty his momma is, more like it."

He groaned. "I ache," he told her. "I don't ever want to swim again. Seriously, ever."

But he forgot about swimming when his son opened his eyes. Alistair swore the tiny little guy smiled when he saw him.

Sheri informed him that it was probably just gas or him making his first poop later on.

"Is Buddy gone?" Sheri asked him.

Alistair's eyes met hers. The sorrow and the loss in them was all the answer she needed. They cuddled together with their son and accepted that life was filled with joy, and sorrow, and sometimes both at the same time.


	21. 72 through 75 The End

**Part 72: Seeking Alistair**

The little monster was crying again. Alistair dropped his head into his hands and felt deeply guilty for the thought. He tried hard to remember why he'd always wanted a child. He tried to keep in mind that this was what he had asked for.

But Adrian's squalling had him on edge and was getting very hard to deal with. Sheri paced back and forth outside, finally walking further away when the usual soothing technique failed.

Alistair laid his head back and tried to go back to sleep—feeling guilty even about that. But it wasn't his turn to walk with the boy, so he needed to sleep. His turn would be coming up soon, and…he sighed.

Rolling over, sleep claimed him. All too soon, a piercing wail awakened him, and he groaned, picking Adrian up and slipping out of the shelter. Curbles lifted her head and, as usual, tried to follow him. He warned her away as he always did.

There had been much arguing between him and Sheri about it, but Alistair had won. The griffons didn't get to come anywhere near the baby. He'd been taught that cats could smother babies, and these were nothing but big cats. With wings and stuff.

Sheri had argued that they were intelligent enough that they would never hurt a child. Alistair wasn't convinced, and so she had given in. Alistair felt bad about that now, too, though.

Parenting was nothing like he'd dreamed of. No ball games, no laughter, no pointing out star formations. No… just crying, wet linens, and more crying. Late nights and—

"Alistiar!" Sheri admonished him. "Bring him back, it's feeding time."

Oh. Well, that was somewhat comforting. She'd take him back and feed him and Alistair could go back to sleep.

"Ah! You didn't even cover him, he's cold!"

Alistair groaned as he laid back and looked at the stone ceiling. He really, really had to get them out of there. He needed help. Sheri needed a nurse for the baby or something—someone beside him to get up in the middle of the night.

For the next week, he worked all day on the raft. Flemeth had left rope and canvas—they had their sail. There was enough rope to lash together a large raft, and she had even left an axe. It was as if she had anticipated him in some way, and it set Alistair's nerves on edge as Flemeth always did.

He came back to camp to find Sheri lying on Curbles, who was purring loudly. Adrian was on Sheri's chest, and both were asleep. At first, Alistair felt fury that she had betrayed him and let the griffon near the baby.

But then it dawned on him. The baby was asleep! Not just asleep, but he was sleeping peacefully. He was sleeping so peacefully that Alistair realized he hadn't heard him in several hours.

He ate quickly and went into the shelter. Within moments, he was asleep. Some time later, he heard soft sounds from outside, but it wasn't wailing, so he went back to sleep. The next day, he agreed to allow Adrian around the griffons, provided Sheri was with them and Adrian was protected from smothering.

The next few weeks were surprisingly easier. And Alistair found that Curbles also seemed to be brightening again. Her grief over the lost Buddy had been tangible, and difficult to bear. But as the days lengthened into full summer, and Adrian began to crawl, the griffon seemed to find a new sense of purpose.

She often squawked when he began to crawl what she considered to be the wrong way. She was as close as they could possibly get to a babysitter under the circumstances.

* * *

**Part 73: Seeking Alistair**

Sheri was able to begin helping him some on the raft, and he found his eyes drawn to her again and again. Her body had changed, but it didn't matter. She was beautiful, and he couldn't stop watching her.

He stopped suddenly and watched her. Now that there were fewer issues with the baby, he found his mind returning to her again and again. He wanted to marry her. He was scared, too.

He was scared because she was so beautiful still. Life on the island had been good to her, she looked somehow freer and more at ease, with a self-confidence that had been missing before.

He swallowed hard. He was taking her back to the mainland, and other men would see how beautiful she was. They would recognize that inner beauty that had kept her alive despite the difficult pregnancy and birth. They'd hear the story of how she had helped them both survive, and see what an amazing woman she was.

He looked at the raft they were making. What was he thinking? What was he doing? Was he crazy? They were happy here. They could have a life here. They'd been fine until now. Well, mostly.

"Everything okay?" her soft voice interrupted him and he looked up at her.

"I guess so. But I'm really afraid of going out on the water. Of taking Adrian on this kind of a trip. What if we wreck? What if Flemeth was wrong and it won't cross the stones and Adrian…" He trailed off.

She knelt beside him. "Alistair, we have to try. This is no life for a little boy. This is no life for us, either. We've done okay, but can you honestly say you're happy here?"

He looked at her as she knelt beside him, looking into his eyes with her startlingly beautiful ones. Their brilliant blue put the sky and even the sea around them to shame. Her bright hair lifted in the breeze, blowing around her face in a way that was endearing to him beyond anything he could have imagined.

He tore his eyes from her and looked around. It was a rugged place, but beautiful. The distant roar of the water rose to his ears. The griffons were calling to each other, and Adrian was shrieking with laughter at the gamboling of the kits.

He looked back at her and said, "I'm not unhappy, Sheri."

She touched his cheek. "It's not enough for either of us to be content, Alistair. And one day…One day we must take the Walk, Alistair. When we do, Adrian will be entirely alone and not know how to fit into society. It's not right to do that to him."

Alistair felt blood rush to his face in shame. He hadn't thought of that. He hadn't thought past his fear of losing her.

Her hand touched his cheek, so gentle, so loving. His eyes met hers again, and blue held gold for long moments.

She smiled softly at him. "I would like to stay, Alistair. I won't lie. I've become used to it. But while I was in labor, Flemeth told me that Ferelden needs us. It needs its Wardens and it needs… It needs you and it needs your son."

A cold feeling unfurled in his stomach and the day suddenly seemed harsh and over-bright. "What do you mean?"

"Anora is dead, Alistair. They think it was Nathaniel Howe, but Flemeth discards the notion. There will be civil war soon, if not already. It's turmoil there, Alistair."

* * *

**Part 74: Seeking Alistair**

They'd finished it three days before. The raft lay beached on the sand, forlornly alone as they tried to convince themselves to get on it. They had finally run out of excuses, though, and stood in front of it.

Alistair pulled Sheri against him. "I don't want to go," he whispered to her. "I want to stay here forever. Are you sure we can't?"

Her eyes met his, and he saw his own reluctance reflected in their shimmering blue depths. She said nothing, simply lying her hand on his cheek and giving him a weak, tearful smile and a nod.

Alistair sighed. "Why does Flemeth even care? Why didn't she just leave us be?"

Sheri chuckled slightly. Straightening up, stick rigid, she tucked her chin in slightly and lifted her shoulders. Then, in a fair imitation of Flemeth, she said, "With civil war comes fear, Girl. And with fear comes the hunting parties. They'd rather focus on a little old lady in the woods than kill each other—it's easier in its own way."

Alistair chuckled. "She's hardly 'a little old lady in the woods'."

"But her point still stands. I'd rather focus on her than get on that raft, myself."

He couldn't argue with her. And he had no objections left. Turning to her, he kissed her. But as he pulled back, he saw the anguish she couldn't control.

"What is it?"

"When we get back, they'll take him away from me. Because I'm a Warden. Because I'm a mage. Because he's the heir. I know it has to be this way, but—"

"No. They won't. I won't allow it. You've given Ferelden everything already. You've lost your lover, you've fought an Archdemon and barely survived… they've taken more from you than anyone has any right to ask of anyone, ever."

He tilted her chin up towards him as she began to object. "No. If they want Alistair Theirin for their King, and Adrian Theirin for their heir, they will have Sheri Theirin for their Queen."

He saw a cloud of anger cross her face, darkening it with the promise of impending storms. "You would destroy a nation in favor of your own personal life?" she demanded.

He shook his head. "No. They would destroy themselves with stubbornness and prejudice. They cannot blame that on me. Nor can they blame that on you, since there would be no Ferelden at all without you."

The clouds passed, slowly, as she pondered his words. "Well, I guess you can try," she said finally.

Alistair shook his head. "No. There will be no trying. They will take us all, or none of us. That is the end of it."

Together, the tiny family climbed on the raft. Alistair pushed it out onto the water, and unfurled the sail. The kits were piled on with them already, and at his whistle, the bulk of the adults flew onto it, while the rest flew over it.

The journey was perilous and long. The griffons alternated frequently, so that none grew too weary to fly. The wind was in their favor, though, and days later they landed on the shores of Ferelden.

Perhaps at the hand of the Maker, perhaps it was merely fate… but they had landed near Ostagar. Alistair decided that this would be the place that would be turned into the first griffon aerie in Ferelden in hundreds of years.

They went to Redcliffe first, leaving the griffons there. While there, they contacted Bann Teagan, who had taken over at Redcliffe Castle. Immediate word ran through Ferelden like wildfire. The Prince had returned.

* * *

**Part 75: Seeking Alistair**

To his surprise, Alistair learned that Jackness still lived, and went to visit him. There was such great joy in the reunion that Sheri left them to talk for a day, and a night. When the next day came, Jackness traveled with them back to Ostagar, along with his grandson.

His grandson became the first Griffonskeep of Ferelden, having been raised at the knee of his grandfather. He had learned from that venerable old man all there was that remained of the teachings about griffons.

The truth was quickly revealed about who had assassinated Anora. Arl Eamon had hoped to seize the throne, as he had the strongest claim to it. But his vociferous attempts to have Nate Howe indicted for it without proof had won him many enemies.

When that was all settled, and Alistair announced that he would only take the throne with the Hero of Ferelden at his side—who also happened to be a mage—there wasn't even a whimper of protest.

People wanted to get on with life, to rebuild, to be at least content for a time. They were weary of war, weary of politics, weary of instability. They took the offer of a legitimate King and ran back to their homes to bury the dead, comfort the living, and rebuild what had been broken—relationships and buildings both.

Alistair and Sheri ruled well, until they took the long walk into the Deep Roads. Their son ruled after them. Between the Father and the Son, a new age of prosperity and peace reigned over Ferelden.

And the griffons thrived again, once more partners with the Wardens, who treasured them, fully aware of what life had been like without them.


End file.
